Taiwan ranked 24th in this year’s World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) yesterday, climbing three places from last year, while press freedom declined in most other countries.
Taiwan was second in the Asia-Pacific region and first in East Asia.
Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager at RSF’s Asia-Pacific Bureau, said that Taiwan’s improvement was largely due to declines elsewhere, as the country’s global score, which was 77.04 this year, was nearly unchanged from a year earlier.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It was “quite significant” how public trust in the media had grown in Taiwan over the past five years, she said, citing the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, which showed the metric at 33 percent last year, up from 24 percent in 2020.
However, “government pressure” led English-language public broadcaster TaiwanPlus to remove a report referring to then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump as a “convicted felon” in November last year, Bielakowska said, adding that it was a “rare,” but “deplorable and very worrying” incident.
Public media have a mandate to serve the public and must be able to operate independently from the government, she said.
Public Television Service (PTS), to which TaiwanPlus is affiliated, at the time cited concerns over the TaiwanPlus report’s “objectivity” as the main reason for its removal.
Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) later said that the controversy caused by the report was “very serious” and that his ministry had “informed” PTS of that.
Bielakowska also expressed concern over press freedom in Hong Kong, which dropped to 140th from 135th in the rankings, recording its lowest-ever global score of 39.86 this year.
“Basically, we see that it’s starting to be almost impossible [for Hong Kong journalists] to continue working” in an environment where they face ongoing government pressure and, in some cases, sedition charges for their reporting, she said.
The latest rankings showed that press freedom worldwide deteriorated over the past year to the “difficult” category — the second-lowest in the index’s five-tier system — for the first time since it was launched in 2002.
“More than six out of 10 countries, or 112 in total, saw their overall scores decline in the index,” the group said, attributing the deterioration to economic pressure media firms faced.
The situation largely stemmed from ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and limited or nontransparent public funding, RSF said.
Norway topped the rankings again this year, followed by Estonia and the Netherlands, according to the index, which is based on surveys of journalists, researchers and human rights advocates worldwide.
At the other end of the list were China (178th), North Korea (179th) and Eritrea (180th and last).
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
UPGRADED MISSILE: The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology is reportedly to conduct a live-fire test of the Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile on Thursday next week The US Army is planning to build new facilities to boost explosives production and strengthen its supply chain, a move aimed at addressing munitions shortages and supporting obligations to partners including Taiwan, Ukraine and Israel, Defense News reported. The army has issued a sources sought notice for a proposed Center of Excellence at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, the report said. The facility would serve as a hub within the US industrial base for the production of key military explosives, including research department explosives (RDX) and high melting explosives (HMX), while also supporting research and development of next-generation materials. The proposed
SOUTH KOREA DISPUTE: If Seoul continues to ignore its request, Taiwan would change South Korea’s designation on its arrival cards, the foreign ministry said If South Korea does not reply appropriately to a request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, the government would take corresponding measures to change how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. Taipei has asked Seoul to change the wording. Since March 1, South Koreans who hold government-issued Alien Resident Certificates (ARC) have been identified as from “South Korea” rather than the “Republic of Korea,” the
RSS