Guarding journalistic professionalism for 18 years, then taking to the streets again - refusing to become a paper-thin wall
Text / Association of Taiwan Journalists
Friends who care about the future of Taiwan's media:
It has been eighteen years since the last time the journalists' association called on people from all walks of life to take to the streets, during the "Zili incident." This time, we are standing up for a sound media environment and democracy in Taiwan.
This is an irony for Taiwan, which, twenty-five years after the lifting of martial law, appears to have a free market of speech and press freedom. In the past, many media people who devoted themselves to frontline journalism treated journalism as a calling, so that society could keep a soul capable of independent thought. We believe that without an independent news media, it is difficult to have a consolidated and deepened democracy; we also believe that power is the language of the powerful, while language and the written word are the power of the powerless. Therefore, as the fourth estate, our responsibility is to supervise the powerful and prevent the abuse of power, and our ideal is to build a fairer and more just society.
However, over no short period of time in the past, we have felt that the freedom of speech and press freedom that our predecessors fought for have begun to mottle. In Taiwan today, there is only the appearance of a clamor of many voices, but a lack of resounding journalistic opinion; the media is lively every day, yet very hollow; the media has only positions, and does not ask what is right or wrong.
How did it fall to this point?
There is a complex media structure in all this. We thought that once authoritarianism was defeated, there would be no demon party harming press freedom. But we were wrong. Over this past period, we have found that political power disguises itself as commercial power, and media operators, with more complex and dense methods, have dissolved journalistic ideals. Not only the operators, but mid- and high-level managers did not rise up to resist various forms of product placement marketing and advertorial news, but submitted to selfish newspaper bosses, and at the same time allowed frontline grassroots journalists to be domesticated in such an environment. In this political-economic structure, what is even more frightening is that people do not pay to read news, which further leaves the media dominated by capital and advertisers; commercial forces stop at nothing in co-opting journalists, buying and measuring news with money, and public value vanishes completely.
As a result, the media pleases consumers and neglects citizens; the media follows the wishes of newspaper bosses, yet goes against its own journalistic soul; society cannot distinguish journalists from talking heads, cannot identify product placement news and pure news, and cannot trust and sincerely respect Taiwan's media.
This trend leaves students in journalism-related departments unable to see a vision for journalistic work, with the news front running counter to what is taught in schools, leaving professors helpless; and the sinking of the news environment also makes Taiwan's democracy like a wall made of paper, not only unable to resist the bullet-like penetration of political and commercial power, but also causing the idealists who once worked hard to lay stones by the wall to lower their heads in silence or be forced to leave.
The democratic wall we once built is collapsing. The "Want Want China Times incident" is merely the last straw that broke the camel's back, and the most embarrassing act in the whole revealing drama of democracy.
Eighteen years later, standing on the streets again, this time journalists are walking for themselves and for society. We must take back the independent pen and microphone; these were originally the weapons with which journalists fought, yet they have been stained with dust by political and commercial power. We must square our shoulders and tell media operators that they should no longer use the media as a private instrument; please restore the essence of news, and do not use news to put makeup on your own enterprises. We must cry out, and with face after face tell the mid- and high-level managers in the media, especially the editing desks, please show moral courage, establish and abide by a newsroom covenant, do not let reporters become salespeople, and even less should you arbitrarily dismiss or delete and alter manuscripts just to keep your jobs. Journalists, too, must ask themselves whether they have done their utmost to guard the interviewing right society has given us and to play the role of professional oversight.
Only when we discipline ourselves and respect ourselves can we gain society's respect. But also, only when more citizens believe in the importance of news to the deep cultivation of democracy in Taiwan, and stand together with frontline journalists, can this paper-like wall possibly be rebuilt firmly.
On September 1, please join us and take to the streets to guard Taiwan's freedom of speech and press freedom.
Written by the Association of Taiwan Journalists on the eve of Journalists' Day
"You're So Big I'm Not Afraid"901 Anti-Media Monopoly March Online Registration
Assembly time and place: 2012.9.1 (Sat) pm1:30, No. 303 Bangka Boulevard
March time: 2012.9.1 (Sat) pm2:00~6:00
March route: China Times (Bangka Boulevard) to NCC (Ren'ai Road)
Main demands: 1. Apologize 2. Be professional 3. Anti-monopoly
Online registration website http://goo.gl/F7XW4
For more information about the march, please check the 901 March Facebook page: https:/
Organizers: Association of Taiwan Journalists, Media Reform Society, Anti-Media Monster Youth Alliance
Contact unit: Association of Taiwan Journalists02-23410044