The National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday it will review all the television news coverage from the night before Saturday’s elections and submit those suspected of violating the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for further review.
Jason Ho (何吉森), director of the NCC’s communication content department, said the NCC has received dozens of complaints from the public, accusing some television and radio stations of not covering the campaigns in a fair and objective manner. Some viewers and listeners said that part of the news coverage might have swayed the election results.
“So far, we have submitted the Eight O’Clock News (新聞八點通) and the Taiwan Forum (台灣大論壇), both are CTi programs, to the CEC as they might be infringing on Item 3 of Article 49 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, which says ‘broadcast TV enterprises shall treat the candidates in a fair and just manner and may not perform any discrimination without just cause if any of the candidates is invited for the program or is involved in the election-related report.’”
Ho said Taiwan Forum, hosted by Ping Shiou-lin (平秀琳), covered the shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文), son of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Honorary Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), and the program alternated coverage of the shooting with live broadcasts from campaign rallies for KMT’s Taichung City mayoral candidate Jason Hu (胡志強) and Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
The program appeared to highlight the connection between breaking news and the election, Ho said. Apart from the programs on CTi, Ho said the NCC had received complaints that similar scenarios occurred on several programs on Eastern TV (ETTV, 東森) and China Television Co (CTV, 中視) as well, including Crucial Time (關鍵時刻) on ETTV, CTV’s Breaking News (中視新聞快報) and two other live news broadcasts on ETTV.
One thing they all had in common was that the shooting of Sean Lien was not merely treated as an isolated event and was linked further to the election coverage, he said, adding that CTi’s case was the most serious among them.
Ho said he has ordered his staff to review all the television news coverage on the night before the election, including those produced by SET TV (三立) and Formosa Television (民視). The cases of ETTV and CTV will be sent together with other cases after the commission completes the review, he said. The news coverage on the election eve became the focus of the question-and-answer session at the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, with some of the legislators accusing the media of giving disproportionate coverage to the Lien shooting.
NCC Chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅) said the NCC will soon invite management from the television stations to review the election coverage.
“The shooting is major breaking news, which the media reported out of duty,” Su said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS