The head of the company that produced the Special Report VCDs, Lu Tung-long (
The structural problems in the media, highlighted by the appearance of satirical VCDs, were not created overnight. They date back half a century, to when the Chiang Kai-shek (
In the early days of KMT rule, the newspapers run by Taiwanese, such as the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News and the Independence Evening Post, were frequently raided because they violated political taboos. The Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News was later taken over by pro-unification forces and turned into the KMT's official mouthpiece. It gradually lost its autonomy and competitive edge. After the ban on the press was finally abolished, it could not survive and closed down.
The fate of the Independence Evening Post was equally frustrating. Constant raids caused it to gradually loose its spirit. At the same time, the China Times and the United Daily News, both of which maintained a close relationship with the KMT government, used their abundant political resources to firmly establish themselves as the Taiwanese papers were drawing their last breaths. Fifty years on, we have a situation which has been described as "the media ruling the nation."
Although the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been in power for three years, the media and the cultural empire built by unificationist forces over half a century remains to this day, unshaken. It will be difficult to fight it in the short term.
In fact, many people have long been aware that although unificationists had lost their hold on the government, they were using the media to continue their rule by continuing to brainwash the general public. This is the greatest potential concern for the Taiwanese people in their efforts to build Taiwanese self-awareness.
But what's the use in blaming the unificationists for using the media to protect their identification with China and their ethnic interests? It is only natural for them to use every resource to protect their vested interests. What we really should be asking is what the proponents of localization are doing now that they control ample economic resources.
People in media circles joke that the United Daily News is a genuine "villain," as it directly attacks the localization wave and actively promotes identification with China. The China Times, on the other hand, is a hypocrite, wrapping carefully its political insinuations in more sophisticated language.
Pro-localization forces have finally realized that they must not remain silent in the face of pro-China forces and their constant media barrage, and that it's absolutely useless to try moral persuasion on such people. As a result, they have begun to take action. Not only have they set up Web sites critical of the pro-China media, but they have also produced animated and digital video files and are using the pervasiveness of the Internet to voice the people's anger.
The appearance of the Special Report VCDs is just one minor development, an interlude in the fight against the pro-unification media. If prosecutors really must investigate who lies behind these VCDs, we can give them a clear answer right now: "Every Taiwanese person lies behind these VCDs." The people can no longer tolerate the pro-unification media.
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