TAIWAN: Journalists scrutinize profession

U.S. and Taiwanese journalists discuss the difficulties of making readers take an interest in international news

Taipei Times
Monday, March 12, 2007

By Loa Iok-sin

Taipei --- Taiwanese and journalists from the US exchanged their views on various issues that pose challenges to traditional electronic and print media in a forum held in Taipei yesterday.

A group of journalists from several US news media on a visit to Taiwan were invited by the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) to discuss various issues with local journalists yesterday.

The journalists expressed their concerns over the lack of international news coverage in commercial news media, which, they believe, resulted from lack of public interests in the area.

"[Reporters] can work and write great stories, but the fact is that our readers are just not interested," Monica Eng, a reporter with the Chicago Tribune, said.

The chief editor of a local TV news station, Lin Tain-chiung, agreed.

"To be honest, the most important thing for our TV station is the rating ... few people in Taiwan care about international news," Lin said.

Patricia Murphy, reporter and host with Seattle Public Radio, believed the issue of public interest can only be solved following a change in mindset within the public, a process which could be accelerated by the media itself.

"People won't look beyond their daily lives until we can convince them to have a change of mindset," Murphy said.

However, none of the participants was able to propose a practical way to encourage the public to "look beyond their daily lives," as ratings are still the No. 1 concern for commercial media.

"We have to give people what they want to see as we are concerned about the ratings," Tiani Jones of KTVT in Dallas, Texas, said.

"While we're journalists, we're companies trying to make profits, too," she said.

How local and foreign news medias can at times interpret and report on the same event from different angles was also a topic of discussion at the forum.

Journalists had different opinions on the recent incident where the Associated Press (AP) cited a Chinese official source and referred to Vice President Annette Lu as "insane" and the "scum of the nation."

The AP story, later cited by the US cable news station CNN, led to Lu protesting and requesting an apology from both AP and CNN.

Lin Chao-I, a news show host at Radio Taiwan International, believed that using insulting language to refer to the vice president of a country was unethical. Eng, for her part, saw the rationale.

To Eng, the use of such controversial terms was a way to spark interest in foreign readers.

"If the vice president had never been described in those terms, she probably never would have been on international news," Eng said.

Eng used an analogy to explain differences in perspectives between local and international readers.

Eng was surprised to see so many 7-Elevens in Taipei and would write a feature story about it.

"The story would be interesting to US readers, but Taipei readers would think it's dumb," she said, adding that while there are also 7-Elevens in Chicago, the concentration is much lower and the services are not as diverse.

Date Posted: 3/12/2007