The recent scandal surrounding People First Party (PFP) Taipei City Councilor and talk show host Mike Wang (
Wang made false (and likely intentional) accusations against six local restaurants. He accused them of selling or reselling food purchased from funeral parlors. The allegation later turned out to be manufactured by members of the city councilor's staff. Although Wang has refused to step down from his post and has blamed the incident on his underlings, the fiasco nonetheless illustrates the unhealthy relationship between politicians and the media.
In today's world of 24-hour news and instant information, where public opinion can change in a flash and missteps are magnified to grandiose proportions, the role of the press should be not only descriptive but also educational.
Regretfully, most people live in the real world, with their hopes, fears, dreams and anxieties, but they are not very good at figuring complex political matters. This leaves rooms for some self-interested politicians to maneuver and exploit the public.
The idea that the media has the power to mold public opinion drives editors, reporters and talk-show hosts to exaggerate and even make up news. Even though the public has complained about this kind of behavior, the people who complain are usually the type of people who are not so influenced by it.
The decades of change in Taiwanese politics and growing press freedom have given birth to intense competition and a decline in the quality of media coverage. Considering that things in Taiwan are so often politicized, the media has gradually lost its focus. Instead, we are seeing a lack of professionalism and an over-emphasis on trivial or sensationalized stories.
As the media gradually loses its self-discipline, it is increasingly becoming a tool for politicians and people with vested interests. Media managers and politicians often believe that newspapers and TV news are all-powerful. But they are wrong. Both believe that politicians are very effective in manipulating what the media says. Wrong again. They are deeply convinced that the media can easily lead voters. Still wrong.
Because of the biased media culture, all parties related to the Mike Wang fraud case automatically fell into the typical cycle of political maneuvering. But the public eventually got the truth in the end -- and they responded. The Wang incident serves as the best example of how the public can hit back.
Opinion polls show that people have become highly suspicious of the media and increasingly sophisticated in spotting its attempts at manipulation. The public now sees the media as a kind of special-interest group, no more objective or independent than any other social group in presenting its view.
Perhaps this is the best time to reform the media. To construct a well-established and institutionalized media culture, several approaches must be taken, and some positive steps have already been made. Through the Radio and Television Law (
Also, the public should exert pressure on politicians and political parties to withdraw from operating or having influence on media firms. People like Wang should cut ties with the press.
Institutional reform is only the first step in providing a fair and competitive environment for the media. Public action constitutes the key to mature media competition. Finally, strengthening public TV would also serve as a model to purify the media culture.
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS