Since former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) decided to run for a legislative seat about a month ago, hardly a day has passed without the state-owned Central News Agency (CNA) covering his campaign.
The KMT nominated Su as its legislative candidate for the fourth district in Greater Tainan against Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who was mayor of Tainan City from 2001 to last year, before the city was merged with Tainan county and upgraded into the municipality of Greater Tainan in December last year.
From July 26 to yesterday, CNA ran a total of 35 stories about Su, often with photographs. His name appeared in the headline a total of 19 times and in seven photographs, for reports on his campaign activities, while there were a further seven other reports about his views on various political issues.
Hsu received far less news coverage from CNA and no photographs were published.
A search of the news archive at the national news agency for the same period found that Hsu’s name was mentioned in passing in only eight stories, all of which had nothing whatsoever to do with his campaign.
Of the eight stories in question, three were from the 19 news reports on Su’s campaign in which Hsu was mentioned as his chief rival, the other five were only tangentially related to his election campaign.
CNA reported on Hsu displaying his wedding photographs, talking about his feelings toward his father in a radio interview on Father’s Day, urging voters to help promote the KMT administration and when he went on the campaign trail around the constituency to tout his election policies.
This disproportionate news coverage received by one candidate over another was reminiscent of the treatment received by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the KMT when running for the mayorship last year that led to CNA being ridiculed as nothing more than a “pro Chu blog.”
Asked to comment on this situation, Weber Lai (賴祥蔚), head of the graduate school of Applied Media Arts at National Taiwan University of Arts, said that an equal amount of media coverage for all candidates in an election was a principle that needed to be observed by all media outlets during an election, “particularly considering the fact that CNA is a national news agency.”
Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉), a professor at the Graduate Institute of Mass Communication at National Taiwan Normal University, also emphasized the importance of -candidates being treated fairly in the media because that is how most people get to know the candidates and their platforms.
The inherent bias of Taiwanese media outlets as they target their own specific audience and select content favorable to specific political viewpoints is a problem not just with CNA, but almost all media in Taiwan, Hu said.
Hu called on CNA, as a national news agency, to take the lead in presenting balanced reporting on the views of legislative candidates on issues of national interest.
CNA had not yet responded to the Taipei Times’ query as of press time last night.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS