"Free to Lecture" Chinese account calls for blood change, Taiwan editorial desk refuses to obey orders

The Chinese Douyin media account "Strait Style" publicly requested a "major overhaul" of the ETtoday News Cloud editorial team. A post posted across the sea actually wanted to decide whether a Taiwanese journalist would stay or leave based on the political tone of news reporting. This is not news supervision, but an attempt to bring China’s political demands into Taiwan’s newsrooms.

Central News Agency reported on the 8th that the account first listed Dongsen Group President Wang Linglin's experience of going to China to worship ancestors, donating scholarships and participating in cross-strait exchanges, and then accused ETtoday of "clearing the ground and creating gods" on behalf of DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang, host Tsai Kang-yong and others. It first counts the dealings as political IOUs, and then requires the media to repay them with personnel changes. This is the focus of its pressure.

If a report is truly inaccurate, critics can point out errors and counter-evidence and demand corrections; however, "Straits Style" skips news verification and directly demands that the editorial team be replaced. It asks not what is wrong with the reporting, but who can be reported and what political colors are allowed in the newsroom. When personnel decisions depend on political likes and dislikes, news supervision becomes ideological censorship.

What's more critical is that the account first names the media operators' dealings with China, and then demands that their media outlets be replaced. The implication is simply that since we have friendship with China, the editorial desk should obey China’s political expectations. If this requirement turns into operational pressure, reporters will first consider who cannot be interviewed and which news cannot be published before conducting interviews, and the independence of the media will be damaged from within.

Operators have management rights, and news gathering and editing must also accept fact checks; but management rights do not mean purging reporters for foreign political demands. It is the responsibility of the media to report on candidates and related figures during elections. Just because the subjects they report on do not suit China's political preferences should not be the reason why a whole batch of reporters are asked to be replaced.

The move from criticizing the media as "too green" to a "major overhaul" of the editorial team exposed an attempt to demand that news be subordinated to political loyalty. The newsroom is not a test room for China’s political loyalty, and the decision of journalists cannot be determined by overseas accounts.

The Chinese Douyin account "Strait Style" publicly requested a "major change" of the ETtoday News Cloud editorial team. What was exposed was an attempt to demand that news be subordinated to political loyalty; schematic diagram.