Former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Lo Chi-chiang (羅智強) yesterday said that he would sue the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) for inaccurate reporting about him.
Lo resigned on Thursday night, adding that he would not be accepting any other government position nor would he make a run for Keelung mayor in the next year’s seven-in-one elections.
In a posting on his Facebook account yesterday morning, Lo complained about an article in yesterday’s Liberty Times, headlined “[Lo’s] quitting compresses news coverage for [legislative speaker] Wang [Jin-pyng (王金平)],” saying that “[the paper] should not assume inaccurate reporting is a privilege of the media; [I] request that the Liberty Times apologize immediately.”
The Special Investigation Division (SID) alleged that Wang took legal pressure off Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) by allegedly using his influence with former minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), High Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) and High Prosecutors’ Office Prosecutor Lin Shiow-tao (林秀濤).
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) convened its Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee on Wednesday morning, which revoked Wang’s KMT membership.
However, the Taipei District Court yesterday ruled in favor of Wang’s request of an injunction against the party measure.
According to the article, “Lo had said since his boss had retired, he had nowhere else to go,” but Lo wrote on his Facebook page that he had never made such a statement.
“It is not surprising for the paper to carry inaccurate reportage, but since it has named myself in particular, I would like for the paper to provide proof of where, when and to whom such words were spoken,” Lo said.
“It is not the first time the paper had carried untrue stories about me, but considering my official post, and the inevitability of becoming familiar with some of the reporters, I had heeded my colleague’s suggestions not to litigate against the paper; but I have left my office and [the post] is no longer a factor in the equation, so I have decided to act to protect my own reputation,” Lo said.
“Vilifying me by putting words into my mouth, words that I have never said, has not only damaged my own reputation, but also the credibility of the media,” Lo said.
Out of respect of the media’s function to provide criticism, Lo said he would do nothing about how the Liberty Times presented him in “political commentary,” adding that subjective criticism must be based on objective truths.
This country is a democracy, which means that when you are elected to office, you have a time limit before you need to leave, Lo said, adding also that relations between employers and employees are contractual and have nothing to do with who you are, or what class you are from.
The paper’s critique of who was allied to whom, and its suggestion that one person could not survive without the another, was passe and only showed how the paper was stuck in an antiquated mindset, Lo said.
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