Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday said the party would establish a task force on monopolization of the media and try to submit its own version of a draft law against media monopolization before March to rival a government proposal.
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) in an internal meeting yesterday morning ordered the establishment of the task force and reiterated that the party would stand on the same side as the academics, social groups and students who oppose media monopolization, said Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), executive director of the DPP’s Policy Research Committee.
The meeting, aimed at trying to plan the DPP’s next move in fighting monopolization of the media, included DPP officials, academics, media professionals and representatives from various social groups, Wu said.
The DPP would have to find a new approach after its proposal to amend three major laws regulating the media — the Cable Radio and Television Act (有線廣播電視法), the Radio and Television Act (廣播電視法) and the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) — was voted down in the just-concluded legislative session and was slated for party negotiations, Wu said.
“We figured that having our own version of the anti-media monopolization law to rival that of the National Communications Commission, which could be non-retroactive, is important,” Wu said.
Su also addressed the controversy surrounding a recent nomination review for the Public Television Service (PTS, 公視) board of directors in a meeting with another group of academics and representatives, Wu said.
While both the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were criticized for their behind-the-scenes maneuvers after only five nominations for the PTS board were approved on Friday, a report prepared by Liu Ching-hsing (劉進興), a DPP-recommended member on the review committee, concluded that the people who boycotted the candidates nominated by Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) were KMT-recommended members, Wu said.
Su accused the KMT of trying to control the media with a three-pronged strategy of paralyzing the PTS and orchestrating vertical and horizontal integration, Wu said.
He added that Su also urged Lung to submit the names of new candidates so the committee can conduct a fresh round of reviews as soon as possible to resolve the controversy, he said.
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