Journalists Like Ye Chinglin Are Taiwan's Most Precious Assets

  Journalists Like Ye Chinglin Are Taiwan's Most Precious Assets

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

July 4, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

The superficial ground often is not the real ground; the real ground has to be explored from casual words or deeds, or long-time actions.

Mainland reporter Ye Chinglin’s application to re-enter Taiwan was rejected; the Mainland Affairs Council, in its press release, admitted without any evasion that the ground for rejecting Ye Chinglin’s application for reporting in Taiwan again was because “we will absolutely not tolerate reporters of Mainland media outlets to disseminate untruthful statements through the use of fake news,” pointing out that what was involved earlier during the Hualien earthquake, Ye Chinglin reported that the Japanese search and rescue team refused to enter the site for search and rescue operations.

The truth will speak. Ye Chinglin’s report came from the scene of the news, and was corroborated by video footage. Even if the focus of observation and the angle of comments differed from what was expected by the DPP government, the content did not violate the ethics of journalism or the requirements of journalistic professionalism, naturally belonging to 100% freedom of reporting and freedom of speech. However, the DPP government, using the pretext of "fabricating fake news" and "disseminating untruthful speech,” rejected Ye Chinglin’s application for re-entering Taiwan.

It is believed that the Green camp figures, including chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, all understand that Ye Chinglin and the absolute majority of Mainland reporters with long-time, serial stints in Taiwan all belong to the group of Taiwan hands, having deep feelings and goodwill for Taiwan, who should be the most precious assets of Taiwan. Now, for political motives, putting the Mainland reporters stationed in Taiwan on the sacrificial altar, turning assets into liabilities, is it wise?

In handling this matter, the Tsai government is stupid in its thinking, abandoning Taiwan’s most important value of freedom of the press; its tactics are clumsy, twisting facts, and trumping up charges; the motive is creating cross-Strait hostilities with malice. This will not win the support of the rational public, only heightening, more and more, tensions in cross-Strait relations.

Attachment : none