Freedom House, the US-based pro-democracy group, is closely monitoring freedom of the press in Taiwan following a series of “disconcerting developments” over the last year.
For while Taiwan was still among the 36 percent of the world’s media rated “free” in a report issued by the organization last week, they found cause for growing concern.
Sarah Cook, who is in charge of Asia research for Freedom House, told the Taipei Times that the country had lost points in several areas during the last year.
She said that during the November visit to Taiwan of Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, several journalists were severely injured and hospitalized as they tried to cover the protests and in one incident of police brutality a reporter was badly beaten.
At the time, Reporters Without Borders issued a statement deploring the violence and regretting that the police arrested a journalist who was only filming the protests.
Documentary filmmaker Chen Yu-ching (陳育青) was detained and roughed up by police while she was outside the hotel where the Chinese government representative was staying.
Cook said that “hopefully” there would be no repeat performances by the police this year.
Another area of concern centered on allegations that the Government Information Office (GIO) had interfered in the nation’s state-owned media.
Late last year, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said that it had learned that the GIO demanded that the Central News Agency (CNA) withdraw a story critical of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and altered reports about milk powder imported from China that was contaminated with melamine.
The GIO was also implicated after Cheng Yu (鄭優), the chairman of state-owned broadcaster Radio Taiwan International (RTI), claimed that the government had asked RTI not to broadcast reports that were too critical of China, the IFJ said.
The IFJ condemned the apparent interference in state-owned media and urged government authorities to refrain from further acts that could jeopardize editorial independence.
“Since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government took office it has never interfered with personnel decisions at the state-owned Central News Agency, Radio Taiwan International and Taiwan Public Television Service, their operations or news coverage,” said the GIO in a statement of rebuttal.
But that does not seem to have convinced Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights.
The organization, founded in 1941, receives about 80 percent of its budget from the US government and the rest from private foundations and other governments.
Cook said that despite the GIO denials there was a sense among Taiwanese journalists that under Ma there was more pressure and “a way of doing things that infringed on independence, things not done previously.”
As the full Freedom House report made clear: “East Asia’s freest media environment, Taiwan, deteriorated during the year, due to increased official pressure on editorial content and the harassment of reporters trying to cover news events.”
Cook also said that during last year the Taiwanese press had become more polarized and political and that as a result it had become more difficult to find accurate information.
In addition, she said, there had been a tendency for the media to move towards sensationalism and focus on political scandals or crimes.
“On the other hand,” she said, “there was a lot of diversity of view even if you had to watch two different TV stations to get a balanced story.”
She said that Freedom House had heard stories of tourists from China rushing back to their hotel rooms at night to watch the talk shows because they were so amazed at the freedom of expression.
Freedom House was concerned at the Chinese-language daily China Times being sold to Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), chairman of the food group Want Want.
They fear that because he has extensive business interests in China, he may come under pressure from Beijing to censor stories critical of China or to use stories that promote Chinese policy.
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