Taiwan's youth are advocating for more independent media
Chen Yi-Shan, the 50-year-old editor of Taiwan's first independent magazine, The Commonwealth, has discussed the media scene in Taiwan in equal measure of annoyance and amusement.
Ms Shan's comments have been spurred by young people advocating for a more independent media; due to the inflow of Chinese misinformation and political journalism, media fatigue may be attributed to both inadequate journalistic standards and institutional factors.
"What annoys me, for example, is when journalists quote internet users and pass them off as reliable sources. If it's for a humorous article, I understand, but for an article analysing the news, it's not serious," Ms Shan said.
She taught journalism at Taiwan's premier university, the National University of Taiwan, for ten years. "Few of my students really wanted to become journalists after graduation, but after the Sunflower Student Movement, they realised they could launch their own media."
The 2014 Sunflower Movement altered Taiwan's political environment. At the time, the Kuomintang (KMT) government of then-President Ma Ying-jeou was poised to impose a free trade deal with Communist China without the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) assessment, as had been previously negotiated. Students, academics, and non-profit groups protested and occupied Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan, until the administration agreed to delay the agreement.
According to the demonstrators, the agreement between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, which asserts sovereignty over the island, threatened Taiwan's position as an independent nation. Due to the successful demonstration, "local" Taiwanese identity awareness gained new life.
Many young people recall this event as the catalyst for their political consciousness, which may explain their present excitement for independent media in Taiwan.
Youth-driven media
A few months after the "Sunflower Revolution," members of the movement were among the first to be employed by The Reporter, a newly established news website, in 2015.
Chang Shih-Yun, The Reporter's director of social media, said, "What the founder mainly wanted was a non-profit media," a first in Taiwan, said Chang Shih-Yun, head of social media for The Reporter. The online media, a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), is now an institution among politically-minded youth: it publishes in-depth investigations, news analyses and features — sometimes four or five on the same topic. For example, In 2017, The Reporter was the first Taiwanese media outlet to investigate human trafficking and abuse faced by migrant fishermen in Taiwan. After the report was published, the government promised to improve the situation. "Many legislators read our articles," observed Shih-Yun.
The Reporter currently has a newsroom in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, with around 40 30-year-old staffers. In its seven years of operation, this free online media has attracted 17,600 "sponsors" - readers contributing to the editorial staff's budget.
"We don't run ads, we don't do product placement. On top of that, we do investigative reporting and are not affiliated with any party. That's what makes our brand and inspires trust from our readers," said Wang Yen-Chen, the outlet's social media editor. "No sponsor is a decision maker; it doesn't matter if they’re a founder or a manager of the media, or how much they invest."
Yen criticizes the recent closure of the Taiwanese edition of the Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily, after the arrest of its millionaire owner Jimmy Lai by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong.
The Reporter's ad-free model remains a source of relief in the Taiwanese media landscape, however. "When reading traditional news sites, readers are inundated with ads. They often spend more time reading ads than the news," Yen-Chen stated.
Independence versus stability
As a business journal, Commonwealth relies heavily on advertising revenue to augment its high reputation and over 70,000 readership. Commonwealth, like The Reporter, was founded at a moment of considerable political and economic upheaval. It is now almost customary for investigative journalists to work for the magazine at some time in their careers.
Commonwealth, also known by its Chinese moniker "Under the Sky," was founded in 1981, while the island was still living under martial control. It swiftly established itself as the first media source not linked with the then-uniparty administration of the Kuomintang.
"It was really the beginning of an era," Yi-Shan remarked. "The United States had just severed ties with Taiwan, the economic miracle was starting, the need for information was extremely important." Chen stated that the publication would not have been able to exist if Taiwan had not adopted democracy after the death of previous president Chiang Kai-shek.
Originating at a period when even the smallest criticism of the government was frowned upon, Commonwealth is sometimes seen as being aligned with the Kuomintang Party. Chen contradicts this charge.
"We are far from the approach of Western countries, which see the media as the fourth estate [and as] a way to monitor the government. Our approach has been one of solutions journalism since the magazine was founded. That's why we already had a good relationship with the government," Chen remarked.
Taiwan ranks 38th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. Among democracies, it also has among the lowest levels of trust in the media