Formosa News and Formosa Television (FTV) were fined a combined NT$3 million (US$98,902) for airing Coco Hot News (辣新聞) host Clara Chou’s (周玉蔻) unfounded claims and revelations about the private lives of certain individuals in her program in September last year.
The NCC said it received dozens of complaints after Chou alleged that former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), father of then-KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), had an extramarital affair with Chang Shu-chuang (張淑娟), Miss Republic of China 1988, about 20 years ago.
The commission turned the complaints over to an independent content review committee.
Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
NCC Deputy Chairman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that Chou accused Chang of having an affair with John Chiang, and using special privileges to land a job at China Airlines, without first verifying the information.
“Chou disclosed the marital status of Chang and caused Chang’s privacy to be discussed in public. She also claimed that John Chiang had taken a DNA test showing he is not related to former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), without verifying the information,” Wong said.
When discussing issues related to military dependents’ villages, Chou used derogatory and discriminatory terms to address certain groups and verbally threatened certain political candidates, which impeded rational discussions about public issues and disrupted public order, he said.
As the content was aired on Formosa TV News and FTV Taiwan from Sept. 20 to Sept. 23, the two channels received a collective fine of NT$3 million for contravening the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), Radio and Television Act (廣電法) and Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), the commission said.
In addition, FTV chairwoman Wang Ming-yu (王明玉) was fined NT$200,000 for failing to supervise the channels’ operations as stated in the Personal Data Protection Act, it said.
Formosa News is scheduled to renew its license in August, while FTV’s terrestrial channel is to undergo a biannual evaluation this year, the commission said.
Meanwhile, Baodao Radio was fined NT$9,000 as Chou, one of its radio hosts, on June 29 threatened to bomb the Democratic Progressive Party headquarters if it did not dissociate itself from Internet celebrity Holger Chen (陳之漢), also known as Kuang Chang (館長).
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