Shen Rongqin’s International Vision》Media leaks are a scandal

The media leaking the topic of the Taipei Mayoral Debate in advance was not only a mistake, but also a scandal.

Regardless of whether both parties agree to it or not, it is wrong for the media to leak topics in the mayoral debate in advance, because the mayoral debate does not belong only to the two parties in the campaign, but is an important channel for all citizens to learn about the candidates. Leaking the topic in advance turns the debate into a performance, which is not only wrong, but has reached the level of scandal.

The media leaking questions in advance is like leaking questions in school exams, which will raise the scores of those with poor abilities to the same level as those with better abilities, turning it into a memory competition, making school tests lose their discriminating effect.

Leaking questions in advance in the media is worse than leaking questions in schools, because candidates don't even have to memorize the draft and can read it openly in front of the camera. This not only gives an unfair advantage to candidates who have poor understanding of municipal affairs, but also eliminates the purpose of citizens watching the debate to understand the candidates. Instead, they evaluate the candidates based on their reading ability. Not only does it not help the public understand the candidates' abilities, it also has a misleading effect. Only the audience was kept in the dark about this incident from beginning to end, and it was a fraud targeting the audience.

What is ridiculous is that the participating media said that because the topic was leaked in reference to the debate in the previous election, the issue will also be leaked in this election. So can the next election continue to refer to this one and form a practice of leaking issues? It’s ridiculous to say that mistakes have become normal.

And there are still some doubts that have not been clarified. The media said that the topic was leaked in advance with the consent of both parties. However, Shen Boyang's camp said that it is not clear why the organizer made the decision to provide the topic in advance, making the matter very suspicious and the truth needs to be clarified.

The most surprising thing is that the media involved did not think that leaking the topic beforehand would harm the credibility of the media. Instead, they plausibly took the scandal as a matter of course. Even the media regards its credibility as dirt, so how can the public trust it?