Taiwan / Asia

  
People walk on a street in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 30, 2020. CPJ recently spoke with journalist Brian Hioe on covering COVID-19 in Taiwan. (AP/Chiang Ying-ying)

Reporter Brian Hioe on dealing with misinformation in Taiwan amid pandemic

Brian Hioe is an editor for the New Bloom Magazine, a news website that covers social issues, politics, and culture in the Asia Pacific region. He also works as a freelance journalist in Taiwan, where the government has been praised for its responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Taiwan's digital minister, Audrey Tang, in an interview with CPJ, compares disinformation to a virus and proactive counter-messaging to a vaccine. (CPJ/Steven Butler)

Q&A: Taiwan’s digital minister on combatting disinformation without censorship

Audrey Tang prefers precise language. During an interview, Taiwan’s minister without portfolio – Tang’s name card simply says “digital minister” – makes a swift correction when we mention the term “fake news.” The preferred term is “disinformation” because, Tang says, it has a legal definition in Taiwan: “That is to say, intentional, harmful untruth, and…

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Tsai Ing-wen, center, declares victory in the presidential election in Taipei on January 16, 2016. (AP/Wally Santana)

We’re live from Taipei! Please don’t tell China’s censors

Typically, news organizations like to promote original reporting. When an outlet covers a breaking news event at the time and from the place where the event is happening, they want their audience to know. However, for Chinese commercial media that covered this weekend’s presidential election in Taiwan, this was apparently not the case.

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Activists rally outside parliament in support of students occupying the building to protest a trade pact with China in Taipei on March 21, 2014. (AFP/Mandy Cheng)

Taiwan journalists feel pressure as elections approach

Political tensions are rising in Taiwan ahead of local and municipal elections due at the end of November. The vote is expected to test the popularity of the ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT), which advocates greater integration with China and which earlier this year sparked protests when it tried to pass a new economic cooperation deal…

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In this image made on April 27, rival Taiwan newspapers Apple Daily, top, and The China Times, bottom, are seen depicting their owners in a fight to control key Taiwan media outlets. (AP)

Taiwanese media sale could threaten press freedom

A media buyout in Taiwan which would put independent news outlets critical of China into the hands of a pro-Beijing media tycoon is cause for concern for the island’s press. Jimmy Lai, the outspoken mogul behind Hong Kong-based Next Media and the Apple Daily tabloid, is selling his Taiwan holdings to a group of businessmen…

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The Taiwanese flag was obscured or erased in some Chinese publications that published photos like this one, of activists being arrested by Japanese police as they  landed on islands claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan. (AP/Yomiuri Shimbun, Masataka Morita)

Censors stymie reporting on China’s biggest news stories

It’s a big news day in China, and state-controlled media are purposely dropping the ball to escape controversy and censorship. 

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Is Taiwan’s media independence under threat?

As business relations develop between China and Taiwan, concerns are growing that Taiwan’s media freedom may be compromised. The culprits include some journalists themselves, promoting China to preserve their own business interests, and Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) government, apparently attempting to exert control over the media through legislation.  

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