The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said it has asked SET News (三立新聞台) to investigate its erroneous reporting on the vote count for Pingtung County commissioner in Saturday’s elections.
The cable news network mixed up the votes for Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chou Chun-mi (周春米) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) onscreen, making it appear as if Chou was trailing Su on the ballot.
Chou won the election with 217,537 votes, surpassing Su by about 11,000 votes, Central Election Commission (CEC) data showed.
Photo: CNA
NCC Vice Chairman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that the error was jointly discovered by NCC and CEC officials while monitoring media coverage of election results on Saturday.
“We have recorded the network’s election coverage and turned it over to the CEC, which will determine if it had contravened the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法),” Wong said.
“Per Article 22 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), we will also ask the network to brief us about the situation on election day. Meanwhile, the network’s media ethics committee must conduct an investigation into its election day coverage, publish the investigation report on the network’s Web site and submit the report to the NCC. We will task an independent content review committee to review the report and check if the network has contravened the Satellite Broadcasting Act,” he said.
Based on footage obtained by the NCC, the error occurred at 8:11pm on Saturday and was corrected at 8:12pm, Wong said.
At 8:46 pm, political commentator Cheng Hung-yi (鄭弘儀), who was the host of the SET News’ special election day program, apologized about the error, saying that the network took the mistake seriously, Wong said.
The NCC received 17 election-related complaints, including 12 received before election day and five on election day, Wong said.
The five complaints received on election day were about the Taipei mayoral election: two were on SET News, two on Formosa News and one on ERA News.
Some people watching SET News over the Internet on Saturday said the network seems to have a tendency to inflate the vote.
Votes for DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) surged to 376,702 about 100 minutes after polls closed at 4pm, while votes for KMT mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) hit 399,214.
At the time, the CEC Web site showed Chiang and Chen with 3,492 and 2,811 votes respectively, they said.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
Hong Kong’s Andy Lau (劉德華) on Wednesday announced that he would perform in Taiwan for the first time since 2013, with four shows at the Taipei Arena from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3. The concerts are part of Lau’s upcoming “Today... is the Day” tour, which began in Shanghai yesterday. He is also to perform in Singapore and Malaysia as part of the tour. In a news release, Lau said it felt good to be able to rehearse his dancing and singing for the tour, even though he had to don a face mask. “Holding these concerts has been something I have
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash