The Supreme Administrative Court on Oct. 7 upheld a NT$600,000 fine on the CTi News channel over host James Tai’s (戴立綱) misstatement in 2019 that the government was spying on then-presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.
CTi News — owned by the Want Want China Times Media Group — was taken off the air on Nov. 19 last year after the National Communications Commission (NCC) found systemic contraventions of ethics rules in the production of news content.
During a news talk show broadcast in June 2019, KMT Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) said the government was eavesdropping on the cellphone communications of Han’s campaign staff.
Tai said: “The Executive Yuan has become the Dong Chang (東廠). Mobilization has begun in Taiwan’s military intelligence, national security apparatus and the police.”
The Dong Chang was a Ming Dynasty-era secret police and spy agency.
The NCC on Jan. 15 last year fined the channel for contravening Article 27 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), saying that Tai’s commentary was false and the information had not been properly vetted by the channel.
CTi News litigated against the administrative decision, but lost its first appeal at the Taipei High Administrative Court in December last year.
In the latest ruling, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the previous verdict, saying that the lower court had rightly rejected CTi News’ claim that the information had been verified.
POLICE REBUTTAL
Although the channel sent a reporter to investigate a police precinct that had allegedly deployed officers to spy on a Han rally, the police chief told the reporter that the officers were there to direct traffic and protect public safety, not to collect information, the court said.
Prior to the program’s filming, Hsieh told the host that he had been tipped off by a friend or friends connected to a prosecutors’ office, but the latter took no further action to ensure the quality and provenance of that information, it said.
Allowing a guest on a TV show to claim that police were collecting the identity of participants at a political rally without evidence might cause panic, which is a breach of the public interest, it added.
The NCC’s fine is therefore justified under the law, the Supreme Court said.
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