SET News and Formosa News have been asked to properly handle viewers’ complaints about their coverage of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒), after both news channels were accused of giving biased coverage and failing to verify the claims made by guests on political talk shows, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
Commission Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥) attended a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to brief lawmakers on the issues related to home shopping channels.
KMT Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) asked Chen if the commission had noticed that some political talk shows spend almost the program focusing on negative coverage about Yen, who is running in a legislative by-election in Taichung’s second electoral district on Jan. 9.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
One of the main reasons that the commission rejected CTi News’ license renewal application last year was the channel’s intensive reporting on former Kaohsiung mayor and KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), Hung said.
Hung said he noticed that some of the news channels aired special reports on issues to be voted on in referendums on Saturday last week, with most reports taking positions that favored the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
He gave the commission one month to investigate if news channels had received government funding to produce these special reports three months prior to the referendums.
Chen told lawmakers that the commission had as of yesterday received 58 complaints about media coverage of Yen.
“Taichung’s second electoral district has garnered attention nationwide since voters there recalled former Taiwan Statebuilding Party legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏維). The commission will not intervene in the production of midday and evening news programs, as well as political talk shows, nor will it dictate the directions of such programs,” Chen said.
Intensive coverage of certain politicians was not the only reason that CTi News’s license was not renewed, Chen said.
“Article 22 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) requires satellite channels to have an independent self-regulatory mechanism that accepts audience appeals related to the accuracy, balance and taste of the broadcast content. As such, television stations should first handle the complaints themselves,” he said.
Stakeholders involved in news events have the right to report to the commission what they think is inaccurate media coverage about them, Chen said.
Media outlets, on the other hand, must not deny their requests for a commensurate opportunity to respond and must not ignore requests for corrections, as per the act, he said.
Forty-five of the 58 complaints were filed by Yen himself, while the other 13 were filed by viewers, NCC Department of Broadcasting and Content Affairs Director Huang Wen-che (黃文哲) said.
“Mr Yen complained that the news and commentaries did not adhere to the fact-verification principle in the act. We have examined some of the content and asked him to be more specific about allegations against him that he deemed to be false,” Huang said.
Last week, the commission notified SET News and Formosa News that their ethics committees must address concerns about biased coverage of politicians, Huang said.
In other news, the commission confirmed that it has since Monday received nine complaints about media coverage of Taiwanese-American singer Wang Leehom (王力宏) and his divorce, with six of them saying that television stations devoted too much time to a domestic dispute.
The other three complaints were about television stations’ alleged contraventions of the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法), as they used photographs of Wang’s children from Instagram in their broadcasts, it said.
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