TAIWAN: Taiwan TV station filmed, broadcast gangster's video

Cable television news station reporter admits to helping armed gangster shoot a video threat to a rival

Straits Times
Friday, March 30, 2007

By Ong Hwee Hwee

Taipei --- A popular Taiwanese cable TV news station yesterday found itself in the news for the wrong reason.

One of its reporters admitted helping an armed gangster shoot a video in which the latter threatened to kill a rival.

The scandal has cast the spotlight on Taiwan's freewheeling media, which has long been criticised for sensationalising news to shore up ratings amid cut-throat competition.

Eager to score an exclusive, TVBS reporter Shih Cheng-kang and his immediate supervisor had lied that the video clip was delivered anonymously.

The clip, first aired by the station on Monday, sparked an uproar as it was seen as an open challenge to the rule of law by the triads.

It showed gangster Chou Cheng-bao, sitting behind a table laden with rifles, brandishing a pistol and threatening his former gang leader: "The next time I bump into you, I'll kill you."

The station's broadcast of the video before alerting the police sparked a huge outcry, with Premier Su Tseng-chang slamming TVBS for serving as a publicity tool for triads.

The episode took a dramatic turn on Wednesday when Mr Shih, 35, confessed that he was responsible for filming the video.

The reporter, who was based in the central Nantou county, said that he was approached by a friend of the gangster who claimed he had information to offer on a recent spate of shootings in central Taichung city.

He met Chou at a motel, where the video was filmed. Mr Shih claimed he gave in to Chou's demand as the latter was armed.

Mr Shih and his supervisor owned up only after being repeatedly questioned by their editors and the Tai-chung police. They were released on bail yesterday.

The police also nabbed the gangster yesterday and seized four fake guns and rifles. It was unclear if the guns were the ones shown in the video.

An outraged Premier Su yesterday vowed to punish TVBS, which he slammed as a "repeat offender" with no sense of social responsibility.

Just last year, the station had wrongly reported that farmers used asphalt to remove duck feathers, causing a panic among consumers.

The station could be fined a maximum of NT$2 million (S$92,000). Taiwan's media watchdog is expected to issue a ruling next week.

Observers say the latest scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. Vicious competition among media players has bred a fixation on exclusive and sensational news.

Taiwan's media market is grossly over-satuarated, with 56 domestic and 17 foreign providers offering more than 135 satellite channels for a population of 23 million.

There are at least seven 24-hour cable news channels -- excluding the free-to-air ones -- on the island.

It also has one of the largest fleets of satellite gathering vehicles in the world, which TV reporters rely on to transmit news images.

Competition is equally keen for the print media. There are more than 100 newspapers, although only 30 are published regularly.

Observers attribute the problem to a lack of proper planning when the government decided to liberalise the media sector in the 1990s.

"In a very short time, we have swung from a tightly controlled media sector to one which is extremely open. And the rules are not clearly spelt out," said Professor Kuang Chung-hsiang, director of Media Watch, a Taiwanese media watchdog.

Media professor Sherman Hwang said: "It's like letting the genie out of the magic lamp. There is no way of taming it now."

Faced with stiff competition, reporters -- especially those from cable news -- have been forced to work under tight deadlines, leaving them with little time to verify information.

Some stations even demand that reporters submit at least one news scoop a week.

Said Ms Tsuei Li-jie, a journalist with 24-hour cable news channel Formosa TV News: "Reporters should not be made to shoulder all the blame. The media environment is equally guilty."

Date Posted: 3/30/2007