Taiwan: RSF denounces rare and worrying act of censorship by the government
Following government pressure, a Taiwanese public broadcaster recently altered a news report on Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Taiwanese government to pledge that it will not repeat this type of interference with news coverage.
Instances of government interference in the media are rare in Taiwan, a model for press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region, ranking 27th out of 180 countries and territories in this year’s RSF World Press Freedom Index. Yet on 9 November 2024, Taiwan’s public broadcaster, Public Television Service (PTS), acknowledged that it had removed, then altered, a report from its English-language channel TaiwanPlus, citing “concerns over the objectivity, fairness, and balance of the report”, following the government’s intervention.
In the report in question, journalist Louise Watt referred to the newly elected US president, Donald Trump, as a “convicted felon” – a factual description referring to the criminal conviction handed to Trump in May 2024 by a US court on the charge of falsifying business records.
“We understand that the Taiwanese government considers the US presidential election a significant issue, but to interfere with a broadcaster’s editorial line in order to improve diplomatic relations is absolutely unacceptable. We call on Prime Minister Cho Jung-tai to renew his government’s commitment to press freedom by pledging that the public media’s editorial independence will be fully respected.
In October 2024, an RSF delegation led by Director General Thibaut Bruttin met President Lai Ching-te and commended Taiwan’s strong media freedom while also highlighting the need for reforms to strengthen editorial independence.
Taiwan, the only Chinese-speaking democracy, faces increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which aggressively asserts its sovereignty over the island. Due to a politically polarised and often sensationalistic media environment, only three in ten Taiwanese citizens say they trust the media, one of the lowest levels among democratic nations.
