Lift student entry ban
Since shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began at the end of 2019, exchange students have not been able to enter Taiwan. Many students kept their hopes up — especially as Taiwan led the way in coping with the situation — and kept submitting applications, hoping that they would finally be able to realize their dream semester abroad.
For many of those who have been waiting for almost two years, the spring semester is their last chance. They have changed study plans, sometimes even extending studies, and accepted delays and financial losses.
It has been frustrating to watch businesspeople travel to Taiwan for significantly shorter stays, while even people with working holiday visas were allowed in as exchange students were denied. This denies Taiwan the benefits of exchange programs, including improved mutual understanding of country and culture, students being brought together from around the world to overcome differences, and the promotion of relations between nations.
While students who are seeking degrees and those with scholarships are allowed in, exchange students are treated with hostility. Using scholarships as a standard for who can enter is unfair.
Moreover, the Central Epidemic Command Center announced that after letting in international degree-seeking students, exchange students were to be considered next.
The caution that the government must exercise in light of the COVID-19 situation is understandable, but exchange students would observe every protective measure. They would quarantine for the required time at their own expense, submit to testing regimes and submit health certificates as needed.
The benefits of admitting exchange students far outweigh the risks.
After two years of hoping and waiting, exchange students hope that they will finally be allowed to enter Taiwan for the spring semester.
As a country that praises itself as a defender of democratic values and fosters intercultural exchange, hopefully they get considered.
Waiting incoming exchange students
The ethics of journalism
The Taipei Times’ report on questionable political coverage by some news firms (“Channels chided over Yen coverage,” Dec. 23, page 3) highlights the one issue that has been evolving over the years. As a public relations professional, I teach future communicators the “rights” and “wrongs” of information gathering and sharing, ie, ethical reporting.
As the “father of public relations,” Ivy Ledbetter Lee, said so well more than 100 years ago, the goal should be “to supply the public prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about.”
While that might not sit well with some people, everyone has the right to be aware of it and form their own opinion.
Journalism and public relations are not “popularity contests.” In both cases, the goal should be to present honest, clearly stated fact, not opinion.
Unfortunately, all too often these days reporting is structured to sway opinion and support causes that might or might not be in the best interests of the public.
The perception that SET News and Formosa News have shown bias in the tone and depth of their reporting on former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) is not unusual, sadly.
In the US, we are “blessed” with media firms that make little effort to disguise their political leanings. Sadly, the public is left to conduct its own analysis and form an opinion that might or might not match that of the source of information.
As I tell my students time and again: “Check and double check your information. Use more than one source before forming an opinion.”
Times have changed. We are bombarded with more “news sources,” some of which are questionable at best. No longer do we have the luxury of forming opinions based on, as my grandmother used to say years ago: “I heard it on the radio.”
Today the caution is “caveat lector,” or “let the reader beware.”
Kirk Hazlett
University of Tampa
Florida
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