More freedom of press if Ma wins

出自香港新聞網 - 樹仁新傳系學生實習習作

055023 Wong Chung Yin

More freedom of press if Ma wins

2008-03-12

A correspondent from Taiwan says there will be wider in freedom of press especially reporting China news if Ma Ying-jeou wins the coming Taiwan’s presidential election and becomes the Taiwan President next 4 years.

Correspondent of Central News Agency in Hong Kong Bureau, Stanley Cheung points his agency has to hold the political stance of ruling party. Due to the difference of policy and attitude towards China, if Kuomintang replaces Democratic Progressive Party to be ruling party in the future, agency will have higher degree of freedom of press.

“The situation improved since 1990s since Taiwan and China started communication.” Cheung admits his agency always had biased in reporting and attacked Communist Party of China before 1990s. “Because of the Qiandao Lake Incident, I went to Zhejiang in 1994 and realized that the facts are not what Taiwan’s media described before.” He tried to be objective in reporting and ignore his bias and ideology after his return.

Cheung stresses his agency should be neutral, accurate and fast in reporting but market force changed his agency. “As the political environment changed, our agency is influenced as many Taiwan’s newspapers closed after 1997.”

Cheung also points teenagers and young people dislike reading political and socioeconomic news. “No teenagers like reading the boring political news and prefer reading entertainments and gossip news.” Therefore, his agency will focus more categories, including entertainment news.