Asia Times: What's Next for Taiwan's media?


	June 7, 2001	atimes.com

China

What's Next for Taiwan's media?
By Laurence Eyton

TAIPEI - Taiwan's media has received its biggest shake-up in years from Hong Kong media magnate Jimmy Lai. On May 31, Lai launched a Taiwan edition of his popular magazine Next. Lai has brought the paparazzi culture to Taiwan and the dust has yet to settle.

The impact of Next resonates far beyond the gauntlet it throws down to Taiwan's rather conservative media community, already hard hit by recession. Next challenges the relationship of Taiwan's media to its political and social elites in ways that members of those groups find worrying.

The sheer size of the Next phenomenon is part of this concern. The first edition's run of 250,000 editions was sold out by mid-day on launch day. But the real issue is that Next goes about its business in ways those likely to find themselves in the news are uncomfortable with.

The TV ads for the magazine give some indication of what those quarter of a million purchasers were interested in. One, saturating Taiwan's TV channels, shows a woman who looks very similar to the actress Hsiao Chiang - who has made much of her reputation for wholesome clean living - getting into the back of a large sedan and allowing herself to be groped by a man. The accompanying tagline is "unmask your pretense".

Hsiao herself has complained about a blue van that has been dogging her movements for days. In a recent press conference she said, "I understand the needs of the media and am quite willing to answer any questions reporters ask me. However, I still want to have some privacy of my own and will be very sad to see this paparazzi culture cause tension."

And it's not only Taiwan celebrities who are nonplused. Hong Kong action movie legend Jackie Chan said that he was deeply disappointed that Next had gone to Taiwan. Chan and other Hong Kong celebrities, used to being dogged by Lai's paparazzi on their home ground, have tended to see Taiwan asproviding a welcome relief from media attentions. No longer.

One of the feature stories in the first edition dealt with the love life of singer Tseng Pao-yi, who had been rumored to be having an affair with TV show host Huang Tse-chiao. The affair has long been denied. Next staked Haung's apartment and published evidence that Tseng had spent three nights in succession there.

All of which has a large number of people asking: "So what?" Neither Tseng nor Huang are married and what they get up to surely is nobody else's business.

But to point out that such revelations are trifling is to miss the significance of Next. Taiwan has its own gossip magazines, in particular, Scoop, China Times Weekly and TVBS Weekly, to readers of which rumors of the Tseng-Huang affair are no secret. What matters is that the affair was denied - Taiwan entertainers try, much like their American counterparts in the conservative 1950s, to maintain a wholesome image - and Next threw resources and ingenuity into showing these denials to be lies, something that nobody in Taiwan has been willing or perhaps able to do.

The launch edition's other lead story was an expose of the love life of Chao Chien-min, who is to marry the daughter of President Chen Shui-bian inSeptember. The highlight of the story is an interview with one of Chao's former girlfriends who claims the young doctor dumped her to find someone who could advance his career.

Readers were divided between those who thought such a matter, even if true, was surely only of interest to the Chen family and those who liked not only the gossip but the targeting: while there is little love lost between much of the media and the first family, most Taiwan publishers would see such behavior as a form of >i>lese majeste.

But it is Taiwan's political circles which are really worried by Next. For a country where almost every city block contains a brothel masquerading as a barbers' shop and a love hotel, Taiwanese can be extremely puritanical about their politicians. Sex scandals have destroyed the career of John Chang, the secretary-general of the Kuomintang, Taiwan's biggest political party, and Huang Yi-chiao, once a rising star in the same party.

Journalists know that few politicians are saints: meeting a legislator late in the evening with a suspiciously good-looking "assistant" is par for the course for political journalists. But ever since the lifting of press censorship with the end of martial law in the late 1980s, there has been an unspoken gentleman's agreement that the press would not deliberately target politician's private lives. Ten years ago this deference was the price for censorship being relaxed. Now nobody seriously imagines that Taiwan'spress freedoms could be rolled back, but the attitude persists out of habit.

There is no doubt that this has benefited some politicians tremendously. One senior figure's record of spousal abuse is common gossip among journalists and the political class, but not among society at large. Huang's case only came to the fore because the injured party was a media figure with a radio show on which to tell her story. Chang's philandering became a media issue because there was a national security issue involved.

As a new kid on the block, Next is not a party to these conventions. There is a rich seam of muck to be raked if Lai chooses to do so. The question is, will he be content with the trivial peccadilloes of entertainment celebrities, or will he go after the bigger fish?

Lai himself is ambiguous on the matter. He admits he is shaking up the way things have traditionally been done in Taiwan. In an interview with the Taipei Times he said, "[Taiwan's publishers] feel that the changes I am making in Taiwan's media gives them trouble. They think I am disturbing the market, and also their old styles. But what people say or think is not important to me."

But in the same interview Lai, while claiming that the paparazzi approach to stories that had been used to great effect in Hong Kong was only for promotional purposes in Taiwan. He also said Next would resort "to any means in the quest of the truth."

Lai probably has reason to be ambiguous. There is not doubt that dishing the dirt on nationally known politicians rather than entertainers would certainly help his NT$500 million (US$14.7 million) investment in Taiwan's Next. But part of the reason Lai came to Taiwan in the first place is that he sees its democracy as a model for China. Lai's run-ins with the Chinese government are famous and cost him his Giordano clothing chain. Taiwan, Lai says, is pivotal in bringing democracy to China, and so it was place he could not stay out of.

One issue that Lai has never really had to address in undemocratic Hong Kong is the role of the media in determining public opinion and the way thisarticulates in terms of voter choice and, in the long run, who governs. The Hong Kong media can change nothing, criticize though they may. Taiwan's can. That is a huge difference.

Which leaves Lai with a problem. Taiwan might be a democracy, but its politicians are no angels. Lai has to decide, therefore, to what extent his admiration for Taiwan's democracy and his vision of its future role in China's development will cause him to self-censor his magazine's capacity to expose the murky characters and often underhand dealings that underpin that democracy.

Next has the chance to significantly shift the terms on which Taiwan's media engages with the country's political class. Where Lai goes others will follow, no matter how much they currently say they deplore the paparazzi influence. But will Lai go anywhere interesting? The death of the "gentleman's agreement" and the culture of media deference to the ruling class might lead to more probity in public life. But Lai might hold back for fear that the democratic baby might accidentally get thrown out with the dirty bath water.

((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

back to the top

©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

Building B - 5th Floor, 102/1 Phra Arthit Road, Chanasangkhram, Bangkok 10200, Thailand

China Chinese Sex News | Asian Sex Gazette