Reporters Without Borders (RSF) director-general Thibaut Bruttin praised Taiwan’s free media in an interview last week, but added that work still needed to encourage more editorial independence in local newsrooms.
“Taiwan can be proud of its free media ... [but] we think it’s important to go to the next step,” Bruttin said in an interview in Taipei on Friday.
Bruttin lauded Taiwan as a “role model” for press freedom in Asia and said he hoped that it would continue to “build up its model” and “show the way to other countries in the region.”
Photo courtesy of RSF via CNA
In the 2024 World Press Freedom Index released by RSF in May, Taiwan moved up eight positions from last year to 27th in the rankings out of 180 countries and regions, and ranked second in Asia after East Timor.
“Taiwan really is one of the test cases for the robustness of journalism in the world,” he said, reflecting on the nation’s transformation from an authoritarian regime that censored information into a vibrant democracy that fights disinformation.
However, Taiwan’s free press is not without criticism, Bruttin said, calling for media reforms to address the lack of editorial independence in newsrooms, which he said had undermined the media’s credibility.
Bruttin, who visited Taiwan for the first time as the head of RSF from Monday to Friday last week to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the non-governmental organization’s Asia-Pacific office in Taipei, described the “credibility deficit” in a recent op-ed as “a real Achilles heel of Taiwanese democracy.”
“It’s good that the media is free, but freedom is not necessarily something that sums up what journalism is,” he said. “At RSF, we fight for free, independent and pluralistic media.”
Taiwan must work on preventing its journalism industry from being “weaponized” against democracy, Bruttin said, warning against “narratives that are obeying vested interests, either commercial or ideological, or geopolitical.”
He said the polarized and politicized media has resulted in a credibility crisis in journalism in Taiwan, citing the Digital News Report issued by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
The report said that in Taiwan, only 33 percent of 2,011 respondents said they trusted most news most of the time.
RSF has called on the government to increase funding for public media, adopt a “coregulation” mechanism to encourage editorial independence and provide incentives to media outlets committed to respecting journalistic ethics, among other measures.
Bruttin said RSF would continue using Taiwan as an Asia-Pacific hub for its monitoring and advocacy work in 33 countries and regions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
One of the main issues is to continue calling for the release of Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai (黎智英), who has been in detention since December 2020 for his alleged involvement in democracy protests that rocked the territory a year earlier.
“We need to make people aware of the fact that they are keeping locked in solitary confinement a 70-something media executive who just had one of the freest, most popular Hong Kong dailies,” he said.
Lai, 76, is facing charges of collusion with foreign powers under the draconian National Security Law introduced by Beijing in June 2020 and could face life imprisonment.
Taiwan yesterday expelled four China Coast Guard vessels that entered Taiwan-controlled restricted waters off Lienchiang County (Matsu) shortly after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army announced the start of its “Joint Sword-2024B” drills around Taiwan. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a statement that it had detected two China Coast Guard ships west of Nangan Island (南竿) and another two north of Dongyin Island (東引) at 8am yesterday. After Chinese ships sailed into restricted waters off Matsu shortly afterward, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch deployed four patrol vessels to shadow and approach the vessels, it said. The incidents pushed up to 44 the number
The government has issued a deportation order for a Spanish fugitive, ordering him to leave the country within 10 days, as he is wanted by European authorities for allegedly operating a car rental scam. National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials yesterday said Salvador Alejandro Llinas Onate, 48, had been notified that he must leave Taiwan, as he was wanted for committing serious crimes. The Spaniard has been indicted by Italian prosecutors for allegedly leading a 30 million euros (US$32.74 million) car rental scam and setting up a fraudulent company in Trento, Italy. The deportation order is based on Article 18 of
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) is to make it compulsory for all fishing vessels with gross tonnage under 20 tonnes to install an automatic identification system (AIS) by next year to prevent Chinese speedboat incursions. CGA Director-General Chang Chung-lung (張忠龍) said his agency has been in talks with the Maritime Port Bureau and the Fisheries Agency to demand that all Taiwanese fishing vessels to install an AIS before the end of next year. All Taiwanese offshore fishing vessels with gross tonnage of 20 tonnes or higher have already installed an AIS, an automatic tracking system that uses transceivers on ships and is
Prosecutors yesterday questioned Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲), while members of the other two main political parties called on Ko, a former Taipei mayor, to come clean about the ongoing corruption probe. Ko was taken by bailiffs to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, where he was questioned for two-and-a-half hours in the morning, returning at about noon to the Taipei Detention Center in New Taipei City, where he has been held in pretrial detention since Sept. 5. In the afternoon, prosecutors reportedly asked Pong about his role while working in Ko’s