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Controversies related to Taiwanese media

Controversies related to Taiwanese media mainly refer to the phenomenon that, after the lifting of martial law in Taiwan in the 1980s, commercial broadcasting(especially news media) began using violence, gore, sensationalism, hype, fabricated news, and other unethical methods to increase ratings or newspaper circulation. These controversies prompted the establishment of several media criticism groups to monitor and critique the media. For instance, the Taiwan Media Observation Education Foundation was established in 1999, the "Confronting the Media" movement was established after the Bazhangxi Incident in 2000, and the Journalism Pollution Prevention and Control Foundation was founded in 2002. These media criticism groups have various focuses: some advocate for the purification of media content, others aim to improve public media literacy, and some prefer to criticize the commercialized of media and call for robust public broadcasting space.

Historical summary

During the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan, the media was controlled by the Japanese government, and local Taiwanese newspapers founded by local elites were often oppressed. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War and the Pacific War, not only were printed words and content strictly controlled, but many newspapers were also forced to merge. In the history of Taiwan (1945–present), media chartered by the Kuomintang, such as Laosan Channel, began to appear. These outlets were used to monitor dissidents, propagandize ideologies, and control speech. Media supervision agencies at that time primarily discussed media content without ever criticizing the media structure. The following discusses focuses on the chaos in Taiwan’s news media (excluding citizen journalism) since 1945.

This differs from the criticism of commercial broadcasting as "bloody, sensational, and pornographic".During the White Terror period, the media served as tools for the rulers' crackdowns and enforcement, and media supervision agencies only discussed media content without addressing the structural issues.

After martial law in Taiwan in 1987, various media outlets proliferated, and the plain reporting style of the past could no longer retain audience; therefore, various controversial reports gradually became mainstream. After the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2000, the transformation of the government information office and the establishment of the National Communications Commission eliminated government control of the media. According to the world ranking of Reporters Without Borders, in 2007, Taiwan surpassed the United States and the United States in the press freedom rankings for the first time. Japan ranked first in Asia in 2015. Freedom House's 2005 evaluation report stated that although Taiwan's media is free, most Taiwanese people believe that the media content is too sensational, commercialized, and too partisan, such as the coverage of the 2004 Taiwanese presidential election . In a report describing the current situation of Taiwan's media, the Los Angeles Times titled it "They Can't Handle the Truth" .

In addition, the Democratic Progressive Party government that came into power in 2000 has reduced its control over the media, leading to the subjectification and privatization of each media. Therefore, many important media are controlled by the two political parties or their positions are biased toward the pan-blue coalition or pan-green coalition. The existing forces continue to give up their privileges, and the new forces take advantage of their governance advantages to actively occupy new voices. Therefore, some Taiwanese people believe that starting from this stage, “The objectivity of the media is almost nonexistent.”. Under this understanding, some scholars in Taiwan launched a media confrontation movement and tried to solve this chaos.

In October 2006, Edelman Public Relations released the "2006 Stakeholder Report of the Top Ten Asian Countries and Their Impact on Taiwanese Enterprises". In a survey of ten countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan, the degree to which Taiwanese media are trusted was revealed. At the bottom, trust in governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations is lower. The highest trust level in the media is 50% in India and only 1% in Taiwan. Alan Vandermolen, president of the Asia-Pacific region of Edelman Public Relations, believes that Taiwan's media has a poor image due to excessive competition and a tendency to sensationalize. According to the latest annual ranking of the Global Freedom of the Press Index released by the French organization Reporters Without Borders on October 24, 2006, Taiwan improved from 51 in the previous year to 43, ranking higher than Japan at 51 and the United States at 53.

In November 2008, Cai Yanming, chairman of Want Want Group, which has mainland China as the core of its business territory, spent tens of billions of Taiwan dollars to buy China Times, Business Times, and Times Weekly from Zhongshi Group, Chung T'ien Television and China Television and other media have become Want Want China Times Media Group, which has caused doubts in Taiwanese society. The Chinese government has begun to directly or indirectly influence the speech and thoughts of the Taiwanese people through agents (such as deleting news related to specific events) , and also cause national security problems. During this period, social movements were once triggered, including the Reject Zhongshi movement in 2012, the “Reject Zhongtian” movement in March 2019, and other anti-progressive media movements, June The "Reject Red Media, Protect Taiwan's Democracy" demonstrations and so on.

On February 20, 2014, a report in the online version of the US Foreign Policy magazine accused Taiwanese media of being shady and lacking an international perspective. It also published a long article by Chris Fuchs, a journalist who had worked in Taiwan, reporting on Taiwan’s media phenomenon. The content of the special article pointed out that the Taiwanese people have had enough of obscene and containment-style reports. Taiwan's media, which are driven by ratings, are generally inward-looking and lack interest in in-depth discussions of international affairs.

Problem phenomenon

Use of photos or visuals

To pursue effects, newspapers or electronic media often place bloody and sensational photos and scenes on the front page or during important periods, such as the Murder of Pai Hsiao-yen . In 2003, Apple Daily, which entered the Taiwan market, often placed photos of injured people and corpses on its front page, so it was often criticized for disrespecting the parties involved. For example, in November 2006, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu’s wife, Shao Xiaoling, was seriously injured in a car accident , and the incident where a crocodile bit off a human arm at Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung City on April 12, 2007.

Other cases include: Lin Cheng-Chieh’s beating of Jin Hengwei on a TV show , Qiu Xiao-mei's incident , and Bazhang River incident .

In addition to gory and sensational photos or scenes, the media also often use simulated scenes or composite photos to make false claims , or use photos of other events to fake events. For example, in April 2013, when former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away, CTI News Channel used footage of Queen Elizabeth II in its report . In April 2013, the China Times mistakenly used a photo of a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator with the same name as Chen Dongrong in a news report about the execution of a death row inmate.

Unconfirmed

Unverified results are prone to subjective errors in the media, and the main reason or motivation for unverified or subjective errors in Taiwanese media is to overemphasize or downplay certain facts and omit relevant information . In addition, Taiwanese media often fail to conduct verification due to pressure on ratings and timeliness. Taiwanese media are unable to carry out the following verification process. The lack of this verification process is the main cause of media chaos.

• After the news is published, cut out the news and send it to the sources in the news, asking the sources to point out the errors in the news.

• A verification process to verify relevant facts and quotation from the source before publishing the news.

Unverified news reports in Taiwan can be roughly divided into the following categories:

1. Making fake news by quoting online information, breaking news communes, and articles from major forums without verification. Such as the Shaolin Baseball Incident, the South African Chinese Labor Incident, aliens and supernatural phenomena, "Weekly World News" spoof articles, the incident with Sun Yat-sen as a Korean, Xi Shi as a Korean, etc. Korean origin theory fake news...etc.
2. Quoting forum posts or one-sided information without verification. Such as the Oolong ear-licking case, Comparison of the performance of Taiwan's high-speed rail and Japan's Shinkansen, the false report of the death of Xu Xiaoshun's wife, Yushan Bingtui report, "Revelation of Shalu Polytechnic students' Prank", "Incident of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China changing the get out of class time to five minutes"
3. Citing grassroots journalists without verifying the information or outright fabricating it. Such as the Pan Meichen incident , female judge kidnapping incident , foot meal incident , Zhou Zhengbao video incident , "2010 Guangzhou Asian Games Electronic Socks Penalty Controversy"
4. Insufficient professional knowledge. For example, China Times criticized Air Force One for moving the national emblem of the flag of the Republic of China to the upper right corner, which was "a red mess all over the ground." But it is a tailwind flag according to international practice.

Disaster

Since disaster events attract the most attention from the public, news reporting of disaster events is a battleground for various electronic media. The controversy often caused by their reporting includes: repeated broadcast of disaster scenes, such as what happened on July 12, 2000. Bazhangxi Incident; failure to immediately criticize inappropriate policies, such as the SARS closure incident of Heping Hospital ; exaggerating the severity of the disaster, such as the serious floods in Taiwan on September 11, 2004, which was pointed out by Chung T'ien Television reporters by the "Liberty Times" Deliberately "crouching in the water to connect", causing the illusion of "water up to the chest" was broadcast . During the 2010 typhoon season, reporters from various media still went to scenic spots with heavy winds and rain to make connections, and even entered wind tunnels to experience the power of strong winds on the spot .

Lack of objectivity

Controversies related to Taiwanese media is closely related to Taiwan's current political culture. For example, there is no specific evidence regarding news from different positions, and there are many unconfirmed and unclear sources of information . When the media reports on these news, even if there is no malicious intent or intentional actions by media operators or journalists due to their political consciousness, they directly cause these controversies.

The phenomenon of creating gods

Some media even deify some political figures in order to please their supporters. From the early days when President Chiang Kai shek used the media to deify himself, the God Creation Movement now not only targets political figures, but also packages and beautifies certain specific objects. During the visit of Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao to Taiwan, various media outlets kept reporting on his philanthropic and donation achievements, and even fabricated a groundless "vegetable purchase" incident in a deceased poor farmer's home, may also be a manifestation of the phenomenon of creating gods. Or in sports reports, there is a lot of hype about well-known foreign players such as Wang Jianmin and Chen Weiyin, as well as news on the entertainment section about Taiwanese artist Tzuyu who developed in South Korea in 2015. The headline is too sensational, and it even leads to Taiwanese youth who develop in South Korea being labeled as "second in a certain way".

Media outlets such as CTi News and TVBS News have significantly increased the coverage of Han Guoyu, who ran for the mayor of Kaohsiung and the presidential candidate of the Republic of China, in the 2018 local public office elections and the 2020 central public office elections, indirectly affecting the election results. Zhongtian News Station has been penalized by the NCC multiple times, but its number of reports on Han's has not decreased, and it ultimately did not receive a renewal from the NCC and can only be broadcasted on online platforms.

Suspected of distorting the original intention

• In March 2010, foreign securities firm CLSA published "The KMT as its own world energy", but the news headline written by Liberty Times Translator was "Lyon Securities: Ma 2022 Will Defeat", reviewed by Professor Chen Chaoming from the English Department of National Chengchi University. But accused by other media of distorting the original intention. The first sentence of the original text is "We maintain the view we proposed last June, that 2012 Presidential election is the KMT's to loss.". On March 26, 2010, on the program "New Taiwan Star Avenue" by CTI News, a discussion was raised with Professor Chen regarding the issue of English translation. Why is the content of United Daily and Liberty Times significantly different when it comes to the same translation being reviewed by Professor Chen?
• On February 2, 2013, CTI News Channel made some errors or omissions in the translation content of an interview with MIT linguistics professor Avram Noam Chomsky, which was re translated by the audience through visual comparison before being made public. On February 4, 2013, CTI News Channel issued a statement stating: "There was indeed an oversight in the coordination between the oral and translated subtitles, and internal review and improvement will be carried out. We apologize for this." . Professor Noam Hang expressed regret over the content of this report.
• On November 11, 2013, the China Times published a book submitted by a student from Chinese Mainland on Taiwan about the event of Deserts Chang's national flag, but was caught by netizens, who accused the newspaper of being totally different from the original content. The newspaper was falsified, added other words, and even directly added words such as "It can be said that showing the national flag is her usual trick.", which triggered netizens' criticism from the original rational dialogue, which was falsified into extreme articles.
• On September 11, 2015, the United Daily News reported under the title "American think tank scholar: The next Taiwan president must accept the 1992 Consensus." This caused extreme dissatisfaction among the scholar Bonnie S. Glaser whose remarks were quoted, and even The Facebook post started with the vehement words "Which idiot wrote it?" In fact, Glacier’s remarks were intended to speculate on what Xi Jinping might propose in the Barack Hussein Obama II meeting, not his claims. Therefore, he was considered to be deliberately misleading. Although the "United Daily News" later changed its title to "US Think Tank Scholars: EU-Xi meeting may touch on issues of the 1992 Consensus" , Glacier believes that the "United Daily News" will continue without paying any cost. Doing so does not preclude prosecution. On September 13, "United Daily News" published an apology to Glaser and readers, but did not believe that the headline that day was deliberately misleading.

Spreading rumors and controversies

• Unverified, a large number of spoof articles quoted from Chinese Mainland online forums or online media. Most of these articles are related to news such as "South Korea plagiarizing Chinese culture". For example, Sun Yat sen, Chien-Ming Wang invented for the Koreans, the the Four Great Inventions for the Koreans and other articles that spoofed Korean culture. The JoongAng Ilbo condemned this and strongly protested against the Taiwan media and Chinese Mainland's online media.
• The China Times reported that while filming in Taiwan, Luc Besson was maliciously provoked by paparazzi from the Liberty Times and even called the police, which resulted in crushing the last straw and planning to leave Taiwan early. Luc Besson clarified that this is a completely erroneous report and has never had such an idea. He also pointed out that there were several paparazzi who harassed the crew severely, but they found out that these paparazzi were from Hong Kong.

Influence peddling

The parents of the suspect Xiao Mingli in the New Store Ambulance Blocking Incident are senior media professionals. His father, Xiao Shiyan, is a former producer at Chinese Television System and the current political journalist of the People's Daily Overseas Edition Global Times in Taiwan. His mother, Sun Xianglan, is the current political journalist and column director of the China Daily News. After the incident, on December 28, 2010, some media outlets accused Xiao of making reasonable concessions and not maliciously blocking the ambulance. In the TVBS "News Nightclub" program, host Li Yanqiu accused Xiao of "making a concession in the first place." , while guest Lucifer Chu questioned whether Xiao had the intention of giving way or might have avoided the wrong direction. Media figure and celebrity Tang Xianglong pointed out in the program that Xiao's act of blocking the ambulance was actually "giving way" to the ambulance and may have been in the wrong place. Famous speaker Jiang Minqin pointed out in a talk show that Xiao Nan may have made a wrong choice and was blocked by a red light between moving vehicles, and the rear ambulance honked its horn to make way, causing anger to break his heart.

The remarks made by famous commentators about giving way reasonably immediately caused a public uproar after the broadcast. And the famous saying only refers to the part where Mo Xiaonan obstructs (or gives way), but the film proves that Xiaonan still has the behavior of pointing his middle finger. The media personnel immediately changed their tone the next day (December 29, 2010), but Tang Xianglong still insisted on speaking.

A few days later, the media reported that Xiao's father and mother had privately talked about famous celebrities. Tang Xianglong also admitted that he had run news with Xiao's mother 20 years ago, and admitted that he had had had two phone conversations with Xiao's mother after the incident, totaling about 5 minutes. During the phone calls, Tang Xianglong repeatedly asked Xiao's mother whether Xiao's attitude at the time was intentional or unintentional, but Xiao's mother remained unwilling to explain. Tang Xianglong said that Xiao's mother did not want the conversation content to be relayed, but it can be felt that their family still did not want to stand up and face it, and Xiao's mother also said on the phone, "Thank you very much for his understanding."

Legislator Chiu Yi also revealed that he received a phone call from Sun Xianglan, the mother of Xiao Mingli, on the evening of the 26th, cursing them for speaking incorrectly on the program.

After the news of Guan Shuo(Influence peddling) spread, senior media figure Chen Shuowen bombarded Xiao's father on a political commentary program on the evening of the 29th, saying, "It's amazing to know a few media reporters! What's so arrogant?" He even shouted to Xiao's father, "If I catch you trying to use media Joe again, I'll make it all public!"

Inciting public opinion and conducting media public hearings

In January 2012, a murder incident occurred among Taiwanese female students studying abroad at the small island 2-chome in Taitung ku, Tokyo, Japan. After the incident, the Metropolitan Police Department had not yet made a public announcement. Taiwanese media had already released the name of the suspect surnamed Zhang, Facebook photos, and other information. Many netizens directly received messages from the suspect's social media website. When the news pointed out that a suspect surnamed Zhang appeared in Osaka and was brought back to Tokyo before his true identity was confirmed, Taiwanese media immediately reported that the suspect surnamed Zhang had been arrested in Osaka, and some netizens immediately left indecent words on the internet, such as "sentenced to death!" and "go to death," but later it was just a false alarm. Finally, The police suspected to have found a mobile phone radio wave near Nagoya. Finally, when the Nagoya police attempted to bring the suspect back to the police station, the suspect surnamed Zhang committed suicide while the police were not paying attention due to potential pressure from various media and society.

Due to the ratings orientation of Taiwanese media and the prevalence of overly clear positions, there have been long-term intensive reports, consistent stances, and attempts to dominate public opinion on controversial events such as the many cases of former President Chen Shui-bian , the assault of Taiwanese taxi drivers by Yu Ji Long hui, The Huang Guochang Incident, Justin Lee sex scandal, the Taiwan Railways living room car sexual activity incident , the eight mile double corpse case, and the 2015 New Taipei water park fire. Taking the latter as an example, long-term intensive reporting has made some readers feel impatient and suspect that it may squeeze out the reporting time of other news .

In addition, there have been cases of media public trial, including suspicions that the collapse of the Victoria Crown Golden Dragon Building was caused by the unauthorized demolition of the first floor partition by "Mrs. Lan". Not only did they launch a rebellion against her, but they even claimed that "Mrs. Lan" was using extended tactics to leave work. Although she was later cleared by the Tainan District Prosecutors Office, the oolong leak has caused physical and mental exhaustion to the parties involved.

In September 2018, Typhoon Yanzi hit Osaka and caused the closure of Kansai Airport. Because a male college student named You said on PTT that the Chinese Embassy sent a car to Kansai Airport to pick up stranded Chinese citizens, which caused Taiwanese media and people to flood the Osaka office with criticism. A diplomat surnamed Su in the Osaka office committed suicide to defend his reputation. It was later confirmed that the news reported by a male college student surnamed You was false.

In January 2019, a man surnamed Lin in Luzhou District, New Taipei City was suspected of domestic violence against his wife and children for a mild Ba-wan. The process of Lin's family violence was recorded by his wife on her smartphone, and the film was criticized by the public after it was exposed in the disclosure commune [129] [130]. After being disclosed by the media, this incident caused a public uproar [131], and the internet celebrity "curator" Holger Chen also stated on his personal live streaming platform the details of the incident [132]. On January 16th, the woman, accompanied by a lawyer, went to the Taiwan New Taipei District Court to submit a divorce application.

At the beginning of 2021, a Foodpanda female delivery worker in Beitun District, Taichung City prepared to deliver meals to guests. Due to impatience in waiting for a long time, the shop owner delayed the ordering time and requested a refund, ultimately causing a quarrel between both parties. The female deliveryman was unable to bear the humiliation and intimidation of the other party and threatened to file a lawsuit. Afterwards, she uploaded her surveillance footage to the Facebook social media whistleblowing community, which sparked a public trial by netizens. In less than a few hours, the store was given a negative review by netizens. Seven days later, the staff involved in the restaurant appeared at the scene accompanied by a lawyer to explain and publicly apologized in front of all the interviewed media reporters.

Other problems

Misspelling and Misuse of Idioms

Electronic media in Taiwan often make technical errors such as typos, and some people believe that they occur too frequently. On May 6, 2007, in the subtitle of the special report on the Democratic Progressive Party's primary election for the Republic of China in 2007 on SET News, it was found that Pasuya Yao (who had coordinated and switched to the first electoral district of Kaohsiung) received 3002 votes and Huang Zhaohui received 3001 votes in the fourth electoral district of Kaohsiung City (Qianjin District, Xinxing District, and Lingya District), which had not conducted the primary election. The total number of votes received exceeded the number of party members elected in that district by more than 5000. Yu Chaowei, the manager of Sanli News Department, said that it was due to the computer crashing when the panel was changed, but it only took a few seconds, and it was immediately corrected afterwards.

Exclusive news phenomenon

The Broadcasting and Television Fund received reports from the public stating that on August 23, 2006, the "Angel Guard Team" involving gangsters was reported in the "EBC News", and the "SET News" reported two "exclusive" news reports on Taiwan's recent surge in the number of foreign immigrants due to political factors. These reports were clearly unfounded, with only subjective speculation and comments from the media, but lacking specific supporting data.

On July 23, 2006, the Broadcasting and Television Fund and the Journalism Pollution Prevention and Control Foundation jointly held a press conference to respond to "exclusive" news such as TVBS's report that Chao Chien-ming took steroids on his own and Eastern Broadcasting Company's report that Chen Xingyu went to a psychiatric clinic, saying that they violated privacy. , practices that violate human rights are unfair to the parties involved.

Abuse of opinion poll

Abuse of opinion polls is a common problem in Taiwanese media, and its accuracy is not high. The reasons for this may include:

1. The media is colored due to its performance, so a certain proportion of people with opposite colors will refuse interviews, and another certain proportion of respondents will also mock the media in the polls; For example, intentionally lying when hearing that it is a certain opinion poll, known as institutional effect; However, in reality, survey agencies only need to see that the rejection rate is too high to know that the survey is invalid, and the solution is very simple - to conduct a survey under a different name (although most survey agencies are unwilling to adopt this method to solve the problem).
2. Polling questions are suggestive and subjective, often lacking empathy, which not only leads to distorted answers, but may also become the tyranny of the majority that borrows public opinion.

Product placement

There is a common problem of product placement in Taiwanese media, where government agencies and business organizations pay salaries and ask media reporters to write and produce promotional "news reports," commonly known as "industry distribution."; It is generally believed that the government's purchase of placement marketing can be reasonable (such as promoting smoking bans, promoting the hazards of drunk driving, promoting new health knowledge, and combating fraud), but there are also many placement marketing products that are used for public or private purposes. On December 12, 2010, former China Times journalist Huang Zhebin decided to resign in protest against the serious situation of media product placement , and posted an article on his personal blog explaining the reasons . This incident has aroused public attention to the long-standing issue of media industry distribution .

Folk reactions

In August of the year when the Bazhangxi incident occurred, The "Media Criticism" website and the "Media Confrontation" website were established.

On March 6, 2005, the "New 228 Incident" involving Chen Luowei from the China Times occurred. A group of PTT netizens shouted slogans in front of a Taipei station, demanding an apology from the newspaper within a week. The slogans demanded that the media apologize, journalists reflect, reject ignorant plagiarism, and demand that the media regulate themselves. Read and listen, stand up! . In October of the same year, a university student forcibly kissed a 12-year-old girl on the Tamsui Line of the Taipei Metro. The university student may have committed suicide by hanging due to misinterpretation of media reports: "The prosecutor has increased the prosecution and given severe punishment.".

On August 18, 2006, Chien-Ming Wang's rejection of the Taiwanese media occurred. Some netizens prepared to launch a student movement and took to the streets on September 1st, Taiwan Journalists' Day, to protest against the media. On August 22, the "822 Support Jianmin Choking TV" operation, which was regarded as a prelude to the upcoming "91 Anti-Taiwan Media and Student Movement", was launched.