gaboman
What Would Jack Do?
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Registered: Aug 2003
Local time: 08:27 PM
Location: The land, the land down under.
Posts: 12712
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Anybody who loves to be outraged will love this story.
This was a huge case from 1997 (in Taiwan), and actually goes deeper than this article describes. I'll explain it if anyone shows some interest.
human rights report
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In contrast to the domination of mainstream media by political or religious news in 1996, this year was one virtually monopolized by social news. Unfortunately, social news is the type of reporting most prone to violate basic human rights. Moreover, with the intense rivalry and market competition among news media, the selection process of reporters, editors, and publishers can all too easily become a source of violations of basic human rights.
The most obvious example was the kidnap-murder of Ms. Pai Hsiao-yen (白曉燕), the 17 year-old daughter of popular singer and variety show host Ms. Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰). Given the entertainer's abundant and well-known connections in political and business circles, the brutal methods threatened by the perpetuators to kill the victim (called "tearing up the check" (撕票)), and the record US$5 million size of the demanded ransom, a large number of media reporters swarmed around the gate of the Pai home in Linkou, Taipei County, a suburb about 15 km west of the capital shortly after young Pai was kidnapped April 14.
Moreover, news of the abduction appeared on the front pages of two Taipei newspapers, The Great News and the China Daily News, even though Pai had stressed to the police the fact that the kidnappers had insisted that she not inform the authorities. With an abject lack of concern for the safety of Pai, these media proceeded to publish the news. The Great News hastily recalled most of the copies of that day's paper and apologized, and China Daily News Editor-in-Chief Ms. Chang Chao-chiang later resigned as a result of this incident. However, reporters and television stations armed with SNG (satellite news gathering equipment for direct broadcast from the field) continued to occupy the site in front of Pai's house, visible to all passers-by, and even trailed Pai every time she left her home with police in attempts to trap the kidnappers, creating grave difficulties for the police.
Even more alarming, some television stations dispatched helicopters to cover attempts by police to apprehend the kidnappers, thus easily exposing the traps set by law enforcement officers. Unceasing flashes by photojournalists and spotlights used by night by television crews exposed the bloodsucking mentality devoid of professionalism adopted by news media when covering crime news that results in repeated injuries to be carelessly inflicted on victims. On April 28, Pai Hsiao-yen's corpse was discovered in Taipei and shown repeatedly on television news programs that evening. The following day, the mainstream daily China Times carried a photograph of Pai's cruelly mauled body on its front page, even adding an arrow to point out the place on her hand where her little finger that had been cut off by the kidnappers. This kind of abject sensationalism without thought to the reactions of readers, the victims or the victim's family immediately met with widespread criticism, including a special website specializing in analysis of media violence (available at http://womennet.org/tw), and was an object of protest in the massive "504" march of tens of thousands concerned with deteriorating social order in Taipei on May 4, 1997. During the protest, eight media organizations, including the "China Times," which bragged about its "recreation of the crime scene," the Rebar Telecommunications cable TV station, which rented a helicopter to chase the story, the Great News, the China Daily News, the Independence Morning News, the Minsheng Daily News and the First Hand weekly which exposed the kidnapping prematurely or published photographs of the naked body of the victim, and the TVBS satellite television network which offered "first hand" real-time reporting, were condemned as "eight black-hearted media." In response to this public censure, China Times Editor-in-Chief Mr. Chen Kuo-hsiang offered his resignation, but was retained at his post by management.
In the six months after the Pai kidnapping, the media served repeatedly as a tool for police and governmental authorities to release or leak statements. As a result, the popular panic over the case never ended, leading to a revival of a reactionary mentality favoring "heavy penalties to curb disorder."
Nevertheless, news media evidently did not learn from this experience. On November 18, the mass-circulation United Evening News and the China Times Express carried front page color photographs depicting the head of Pai kidnap suspect Mr. Kao Tien-ming (高天民) after he committed suicide by shooting himself in the brain. But it appears that depicting the "death portrait" of the suspected perpetrator was less subject to the strictures of professional morality than running the picture of the slain victim. Or it may be that the news media had already turned a deaf ear to the reaction of readers as mainstream media did not subsequently exercise any self-discipline in printing or airing the blown-up blood-filled photographs of the scene.
Shortly afterward, the news media sparked further controversy by even deeper involvement in the Pai case. From November 18-19, the United Daily News, the Agence France Presse (AFP), the Taiwan Television network (TTV), TVBS, Formosa Television, Super Cable TV and Eastern Cable TV and other media successively carried out exclusive interviews with the last remaining Pai kidnap suspect Mr. Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興) while he was holding the South African military attache and his family hostage in their Tienmu home. Each TV station also sent crews to the scene for virtually continuous on-the-spot reporting. For a time, this suspected heartless slayer of a 17-year-old girl and suspected rapist of several other women became the object of pursuit or coddling by the news media. Reporters without a shred of experience in hostage negotiations engaged in hours of dialogue with a mentally and emotionally unstable criminal suspect. The media collectively monopolized the only available communication channel to carry out these interviews, with regrets only for inability to get enough airtime with Chen while concern for the safety of the hostages became only a promise stuck on the mouths of reporters. Police officers were forced to watch TV to follow the case in what must be recorded as the most unusual day in the history of journalism in Taiwan.
In May, after the controversy over coverage of the Pai kidnapping, a "covenant regarding reporting of kidnapping news" was drafted by the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ), but the brief revival of self-discipline among the media entirely vanished under the pressure of market competition. The renewal of calls for legislation restricting media news coverage of kidnapping or other major criminal acts was thus hardly surprising as news freedom became the sacrificial offering for the media's refusal to exercise professional morality or self-discipline. Moreover, news media exposure of the subsequent kidnap-murder of the boy Lin Bing-hung (林秉宏 was turned into an excuse for the failure by police to find clues to break the case, causing the victim's relatives to refuse to be interviewed by any news media for a time.
Besides the Pai kidnap-murder, numerous other cases of juvenile crime became the focus of social or society news coverage islandwide. The easy entry of reporters into police bureaus and their frequent browsing of police interrogation records and copying of files on suspected criminals and their cases has become "routine behavior" in Taiwan even though such actions are clearly illegal. Most reporters on social news beats see these practices as routine and some even have reached tacit understandings or agreements with police to supply some individual cases "from the bottom of the file" for use on slow days to met the demands of editors for copy.
The "Sexual Assaults Prevention Law" (性侵害犯罪防治法) was promulgated on January 22, 1997 and clearly requires that "advertisements, publications, television broadcasts, internet networks or any kind of media cannot report or record facts on cases of sexual violence such as the name or other information capable of revealing the victim's identity." After this statute officially became law, many news media continued to violate this statute until its implementing regulations were issued on July 21, 1997 whereupon virtually every major newspaper was slapped with minor fines of NT$30,000 for reporting the names of victims of sexual assaults.
In its November 1997 issue (pp. 33-35), the Media Watch bimonthly published by the Association of Taiwan Journalists reported that the China Times, the United Daily News, the Liberty Times, the Independence Morning Post, the Central Daily News, the Taiwan Hsin Sheng Daily News, the Min Chung Daily News, the Taiwan Times, and the Taiwan Hsin Wen Daily News were the first newspapers to be fined under the law on August 13 for revealing the name of a rape victim in Wusung township, Kaohsiung County in reports on August 11. On September 10, the United Evening News, Independence Evening Post, the China Times Express, the China Times, the Independence Morning Post, the Liberty Times, the Taiwan Hsin Sheng Daily News, the Taiwan Times, and the Taiwan Daily News were also fined for violating the same rule.
On October 10, all media persisted in offering detailed reports on the rape-murder of a middle school student on vacation in Hsinchu. Even though most media already had only reported the surname but not the given name, the China Times and the China Times Express repeatedly published both the victim's entire name. The numerous interviews of the victim's family by the electronic media also sparked controversy and censure.
From these events it is evident that news coverage of details of criminal cases (including names) without concern for the human rights of either victims nor the rights of suspects who have not even been indicted, much less convicted is prevalent among the Taiwan news media and taken as a matter of course by reporters and editors. Moreover, regulatory agencies, such as the Government Information Office (GIO) and related offices in each county or city government lack legitimacy because of the perception that they "act as both player and referee." Such "responsible" agencies wish neither to offend the news media or hold back from taking action against violators for fear of exposing the inadequacies of their own operations. As a result, they tend to "take the easy way out" by applying only the minimum fines within the NT$30,000 to NT$300,000 range authorized by the "Sexual Assaults Prevention Law", simply slapping the offending media on the wrist.
The imposition of legal restrictions on press freedom to deal with the lack of self-discipline of the news media is an undesirable policy to begin with, but it also seems that the news media has already evolved patterns to cope with regulation imposed from the top. The "Sexual Assaults Prevention Law" stipulates that identification of a victim with permission is not a violation; therefore, media covering such cases have approached the fathers of victims to sign documents granting consent and presented these to the GIO to appeal fines. Some media have even used the excuse of "ignorance of the new law" in efforts to evade fines.
The former practice only imposes a third injury on victims and family (We might ask who would agree to the demands of media to give permission for the release of their daughter's name to be published in newspapers? Even so, shouldn't news media clearly explain in their reports that they did obtain such permission instead of producing a letter of consent after the fact?). The latter method reveals fully only a shameless effort by news media to play innocent with a plea that "ignorance of the law" is an excuse to escape their legal obligations. The sorry level of knowledge about human rights and the rule of law among reporters and other people involved in the media is distressing. |
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09-22-2005 04:30 AM
