Taipei - Taiwan's top media regulator Friday fined a popular
cable television channel for lying about the source of a news footage
showing a gangster challenging the law, and ordered that the station
replace its president.
'We have decided to fine TVBS with a total of 2 million Taiwan
dollars (62,500 US) for violating relevant regulations by
broadcasting a video highly unfit to be showed to the public,' said
National Communications Commission (NCC) spokesman Shih Shih-hao.
Shih said TVBS must also replace its president within a week for
failing to stop the improper footage from being broadcast.
The punishment came after the TVBS aired a five-minute recording
of Chou Cheng-pao, a notorious gangster in Taichung, central Taiwan,
challenging the police and another gangster, Liu Rei-rong, on Tuesday.
The footage, shot in a motel room, showed Chou sitting in a bed
with guns and rifles lying in front of him as he admitted to
participating in three recent gun battles in Taichung and voiced
grievances against Liu.
'If I see you again, I will kill you!' Chou shouted into the
camera while, waving a pistol and pulling the trigger.
The video sent shockwaves across Taiwan and left many people
fearing for their safety and doubting whether police or gangsters
were in control.
TVBS initially claimed that Chou had made the tape himself and
sent it to the channel. But on Wednesday afternoon, TVBS informed
police that the video was shot by its reporters for Chou in the motel
room.
The confession prompted parliamentarians of Taiwan's ruling
Democratic Progressive Party, who have long been upset by the TV's
critical stand against the government, to demand TVBS be shut down.
Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang also demanded that the independent
commission seriously punish the TV station.
NCC spokesman Shih said Friday that 11 other TV stations which
broadcast the same footage will also be punished. He did not
elaborate.
Those stations, which claimed they obtained a copy of the footage
from police, aired the same footage half an hour after the TVBS
broadcast. TVBS Thursday said it gave the original footage to police
and kept a copy for it to broadcast.
TVBS, which has apologized for the lie, has so far fired two
reporters involved in producing the controversial footage. Five of
its officials were questioned Friday by prosecutors over whether they
knew beforehand the footage was staged by the reporters.
Police on Thursday also arrested Chou, who was hiding in a village
hut in central Taiwan. They discovered that the firearms displayed
through the video were all toy guns.
Since Taiwan dropped restrictions on the media in the late 1980s,
the country's television market has ballooned from three
state-controlled TV stations to 100 24-hour cable channels,
triggering fierce competition among TV companies and reporters.
In the battle for scoops and viewers, some Taiwan channels
sensationalize or even fabricate news.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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