Nearly 96 percent of Taiwanese said the media should do a better job verifying news, and more than half considered the quality of news as a major source of social problems, a poll released yesterday by the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation showed.
The poll, which aims to shed light on the public’s views on local media, found that most Taiwanese question the professionalism of media and are concerned about their manipulation by politicians and businesses, the foundation said.
Asked if they agree with the statement that Taiwan’s media are professional, 65.9 percent of respondents disagreed, while 21.2 percent agreed.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Asked to assess the quality of the nation’s media companies, 57.8 percent said they were a key source of social problems, 51.3 percent said they keep the government in check and 51.1 percent said they lack journalistic ethics.
According to the survey, 95.7 percent said media firms do not properly verify their reports, while 93.7 percent complained about sensationalism and 87.2 percent complained about biased reporting.
The poll found that 72.9 percent of respondents were concerned about bias in media companies’ reporting due to influence from politicians and businesses, while 17.7 percent were not concerned, it found.
Forty-one percent said Beijing’s manipulation of Taiwanese media presents a serious problem, compared with 25.4 percent who did not not consider it a problem and 17.5 percent who said the problem is mild, the survey found.
Asked about their views on political talk shows, 57.5 percent said they provide helpful analysis, 56.7 percent said they tend to exaggerate issues and 52.6 percent said that they polarized society.
To improve quality in the media sector, 85.5 percent said self-discipline by media companies is key, while 76.9 percent called for supervision from civil groups and 76.1 percent urged legislation, the poll found.
To increase people’s understanding of the media, 63.1 percent said schools should teach how to spot false reports and information, it said.
Asked what should be taught about national security and freedom of the press, 78.4 percent supported teaching students that national security is more important than freedom of the press, while 11.3 percent said freedom of the press is more important than national security.
The foundation conducted the poll partly due to widespread attention given to “fake news” and China’s manipulation of Taiwanese media, foundation chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said.
The poll results show increased public awareness about the risks of misinformation, he added.
The survey is a reminder that Taiwanese media companies are doing a poor job of verifying their news, political commentator Yang Hsien-hung (楊憲宏) said.
Poor news quality often results from a lack of senior journalists equipped with the knowledge to immediately identify errors in the editing process, he said.
“Media self-discipline requires professionalism and is not something that can be simply achieved by making a few extra telephone calls,” Yang said.
Many media firms brought on their own destruction by “turning themselves into weapons for a political agenda,” he said, adding: “The public’s trust is hard to rebuild once lost.”
The poll collected 1,070 responses via telephone interviews from Aug. 11 to Aug. 14 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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