A campaign initiated by the Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters two weeks ago that calls on academics to reject any publication of their works by the Chinese-language China Times has so far gathered more than 100 signatures from acclaimed academics and writers.
The petition was galvanized by the conditional approval of a NT$76 billion (US$2.54 billion) deal allowing the Want Want China Times Group to acquire some of the cable TV services owned by China Network Systems (CNS) and its treatment of Academia Sinica associate research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), who was accused by the media giant of paying students to attend a protest against the acquisition deal. The group later apologized for the accusations.
“Based on the Want Want China Times Group’s derogatory reports about Huang, we believe that the media group and its media subsidiaries have forsaken their self-discipline and journalistic ethics,” said Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), spokesman of the alliance, which is composed of 30 student clubs from several universities.
In particular, the China Times, a newspaper that used to be seen as the voice of the public, has gone against its journalistic conscience and become the personal mouthpiece of Want Want China Times Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), Lin said.
“That was why we decided to support an anti-media monopoly protest to be staged today with our petition movement,” Lin said.
Since the China Times is no longer faithful to journalistic ethics and has become nothing more than an “attack dog” for Tsai and his group, people must refuse to read it or to allow their work to be published in the newspaper, so as to uphold the principles of media independence and freedom of speech that society rightfully deserves, Lin said.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
Three human skeletons and artifacts believed to be about 400 years old were unearthed by construction workers at National Ilan University in Yilan County, the university said yesterday. The discoveries were made on May 10 as workers were digging to expand the College of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science’s facilities, the university said in a statement. The skeletons were found at three sites, along with glass beads, copper bells and rings, discs and a fish-shaped metal knot, it said. The find is likely connected to the “Old Baili Village” (擺厘舊社, Bai Li Jiu She), an as-yet-undiscovered Kavalan settlement that has been mentioned in
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