The National Communications Commission (NCC) reached a resolution yesterday afternoon that the TVBS and TVBS-N television stations will each be fined NT$1 million (US$30,200) for mishandling the gangster footage broadcast earlier this week.
The resolution also mandated that the station replace general manager Lee Tao (李濤) and deputy news department general manager Li Siduan (李四端) within seven days after receiving the official order from the commission.
Meanwhile, ERA News, CTI News, Eastern News and SET News, which rebroadcast the footage -- and thus violated government regulations -- will all be penalized NT$400,000.
The commission also fined Formosa News NT$300,000.
TTV News and CTV News will also be fined NT$210,000 each for screening the footage, it added.
CTS News will receive a fine of NT$150,000.
The commission said it would continue to investigate whether Unique Satellite TV and GTV also violated regulations.
NCC spokesperson Howard Shyr (石世豪) said that the commission's investigation showed that TVBS' news review process was poorly regulated and failed to live up to journalistic ethics.
TVBS representatives admitted to commission members that each step in their standardized operating procedures had "completely lost its stated function," Shyr added.
The investigation also found that some of TVBS' supervisors were hosts and producers of the station's own news programs, he said.
They apparently had not done their job to actively regulate the news quality, he said.
The commission also recommended that TVBS and TVBS-N inform prosecutors and police before interviewing suspects and fugitives in the future.
The announcement came after the TVBS new management team briefed the commission on its handling procedures for the gangster story yesterday morning.
TVBS issued a statement late last night, saying that both Pan and Sun would be transferred to other departments. It didn't give any further details.
Lee Tao was quoted in the statement as saying that he would not hesitate to leave his post, but he didn't say whether he would bow to the NCC's request and leave within seven days.
The statement added that the station had to consult with its lawyers before responding to the NCC's request because it didn't understand on what legal basis the requests were made.
Upon learning of the decision by the commission, Premier Su Tseng-tsang (蘇貞昌) said the penalty did not live up to the expectations of the public.
Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said: "Yesterday [Thursday], when the public's resentment [toward TVBS] reached its climax, we were hoping the NCC would punish TVBS."
"But the NCC only decided to fine TVBS NT$1 million and also tried to defend TVBS by claiming that it was only a first offender [for such a violation] ... We cannot expect much of the NCC anymore," he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei (雷倩) said the NCC's request that TVBS dismiss Lee Tao as general-manager was "inappropriate," as the NCC's function is to ensure that news reports do not violate the public interest instead of interfering with personnel.
Roger Hsi (習賢德), an associate professor at the graduate school of mass communication at Fu Jen Catholic University, said similar incidents have happened in the past.
As an example, Hsi said, five years ago reporters at the China Daily News in Tainan took a phone call from a wanted criminal.
The suspect asked reporters to meet him in a graveyard.
Without informing the police, the management at the newspaper turned the incident into a headline story on the next day's front page.
Hsi also said that the media must adhere to a strict code of conduct.
"This incident [the gangster footage] is not the first and will not be the last," he said.
"Self discipline is always the most effective and important way [to prevent such incidents] than discipline by others," he said.
Wei Ti (魏玓), an assistant professor of mass communications at Tamkang University, said the incident exposed the distorted practices that TVBS has been following for years.
"We have to ask why the reporters wanted to chase such a strange `scoop' in the first place," he said.
"The management must have rewarded this kind of behavior for a long time," he said.
Additional reporting by Flora Wang and Shih Hsiu-chuan
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