An associate of mine was attending a shindig for overseas media types recently when he was introduced to an American chap who works for a think tank of some form or another.
“The Taipei Times editorials,” Think Tank Man said with a sneer, “are like the People’s Daily.”
What Think Tank Man was trying to say was the editorial line of the newspaper you are clutching is a “green” version of the famed Chicom journal that praises all things “red” and unintelligently invents or ignores everything else that relates to sensitive matters.
I suspect my associate was too polite — or not nearly drunk enough — to respond with a withering attack on think tanks that peddle wisdom after the fact. But this exchange, and next week’s demise of the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration, got me thinking anew about why I hadn’t taken up a career as a spin doctor.
Whatever you think of this newspaper’s editorial line, my friends, one thing is for sure: If the Chen team were half as radical as international and pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) media outlets make it out to be, then the unfortunate writers of the editorials would already be chained together at the bottom of Taiwan’s deepest river, courtesy of Green Terror operatives.
Which is to say, they would be immersed up to about their waists and shouting for help to the oubasang tending to her cabbages next to the riverbank.
Now why would these editorialists suffer such undignified treatment after all their labors?
Because they mocked the DPP government’s ineptitude and rotten elements just as faithfully as vilifying the KMT for its sins.
Me, I’m not so interested in balance. And I have to confess that I am far more mercenary than some of my admirers might think acceptable. Even as this newspaper attempted to find a middle path between unreformed KMT thuggery and relentless DPP onanism, here was I, sitting beside my mobile phone, ready and waiting to balance the ledger in favor of the government.
I said many columns ago that I have been eagerly waiting for bribes from the authorities to say nice things about them, but not NT$1 has come my way.
As the Chen administration wore on, there were less and less reasons to say nice things. Yet even at these critical times, when potential media lackeys such as myself were at our most indispensable, Chen and Co continued to be distracted by flighty ideological games, party infighting (picture two teary children in a pillow fight), corrupt aides and dopey foreign relations strategies.
The rest is history.
The Chen government has been so inept in dealing with the domestic media that it failed to ram home the message that the country did not collapse into a vicious ethnic war zone, or get nuked by the Chicoms, or enter eight vicious years of economic recession.
It made the mistake of being accommodating toward its most obnoxious foes in the media while being dismissive and contemptuous toward more agreeable people.
And as for the international media ... well, don’t get me started. The DPP may have diligent link men in Washington, but when it came to wining and dining foreign correspondents, you couldn’t have made a worse impression if you were a child trafficker hosting a World Vision promotion.
So after a while I thought I might offer my “scribe of the night” services (the world’s third-oldest profession) to the private sector. This decision was sealed a few months ago when I rang up an old friend at the Government Information Office (GIO) and offered to propagandize for them to the effect that GIO publications were not propaganda.
“Forget it, Johnny,” came the reply. “Everyone here is expecting Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to lose the election. If you make the old GIO look too good the new guys will kick you out. And anyway, there are people here who haven’t forgiven you for ripping into A Brief History of Taiwan.”
“But it was crap,” I said.
“Hardly the point, old chum. Some of these guys were seriously offended. They put a lot of effort into that tome. And they don’t tolerate criticism unless it comes from their superiors. By the way, fancy a trip to the Dadaocheng Comfortable Body Emporium For Men And Women next week?”
Like I said, the private sector beckoned. And where better to start than the media?
I started with the enemy: the United Daily News. I told them I could come up with an advertising campaign that would reverse their difficult financial situation by attracting pro-independence readers away from the Neihu News Network (NNN) through careful marketing, as well as dragging readers away from the Apple Daily by replacing the editorial page with wall-to-wall nudity and blurry coital poses.
I should have known better: Never market sexual content to a guy who sits on a chair cushion with the KMT emblem on one side and a picture of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) on the other.
Next up was the China Times.
I told them: “Change the name of the paper to ‘Chinese Taipei Times’ and you can pull in all the sports fans and political moderates. The slogan can be ‘You can be green with envy while going blue in the face.’”
Alas, they didn’t buy it. But what can you expect from a paper whose print stock looks like it was recycled from a broken-down washing machine?
The Apple Daily was in my sights, too. These guys would just love to topple NNN in the circulation stakes — and I knew how they could do it.
“Stop running large, explicit pictures of dead kids in quake rubble on your front page,” I said. “No self-respecting person is going to take this stuff home to their children and elderly parents. Go for the emotions, not the gag reflex. Trust me, I’m an expert on both responses.”
Well, the harried editor I spoke too was sympathetic, but again, my Taipei Times column proved to be my undoing.
“You make fun of Hong Kong too much,” she said. “I don’t wanna lose my job. Where else in the media world can I get paid like this?”
So I got fed up with the media. They’re all losing money, anyway, so what good could come of it?
Now I’m scouting the IT sector. With all of the potential disasters that investment in China brings, they could do with a guy like me reassuring investors that the Dragon is rising — but that the Dragon also belches and farts and that patience with His metabolism is an economic virtue.
Dear readers, that’s the difference between aspiring Taiwanese propagandists such as I and my hack counterparts who won’t leave the pro-KMT newspapers. Those guys would gladly preach for free (and given some of their wages, that is more or less what they are doing).
Me, I expect respectable remuneration for my wily wordsmithery.
Maybe it’s time I went to Burma (when the weather improves). I hear that its charming junta needs a sympathetic scribe now that Douglas Goodyear and Doug Davenport, two aides to US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, are no longer making mountains of cash from issuing the generals’ press releases.
Then again, now that these guys have resigned from McCain’s team, propaganda may be a buyer’s market all over again.
Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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