KMT to support anti-monopoly campaign
The KMT legislative caucus will be supporting new amendments to Taiwan's media laws that will, among other things, "include a regulation that the number of channels owned by media operators and their related enterprises cannot account for more than one-tenth of all [television] channels," with the caucus suggesting that "print media also be covered by anti-media monopolization regulations."
We'll see what bill actually gets passed, I suppose.
The Taipei Times article is good, but the China Times has a few juicy details on questionable authority. They report that Ma has instructed KMT thinktank(s?) to lend the necessary support. I love this revelation, because it shows the opposite of what a Think Tank should do. You don't want to waste money asking your talented people who to do "research" pre-designed to support the conclusion that the KMT bill is about the best you could do.
The China Times report also indicates that according to their source, the KMT caucus thinks that there's nothing they can do about print media regulations right now, but that "After the Liberty Times went electronic, it is now subject to regulation too." The anonymous source is quoted as saying, "Everybody pull close and let's play together. Let's not target one side!"
Of course, it's no surprise to me that the KMT wants to turn this into a tit-for-tat issue despite the lack of any sensible equivalency between the Next Media sale and the Liberty Times operation. The Taipei Times article linked above said it well:
We'll see what bill actually gets passed, I suppose.
The Taipei Times article is good, but the China Times has a few juicy details on questionable authority. They report that Ma has instructed KMT thinktank(s?) to lend the necessary support. I love this revelation, because it shows the opposite of what a Think Tank should do. You don't want to waste money asking your talented people who to do "research" pre-designed to support the conclusion that the KMT bill is about the best you could do.
The China Times report also indicates that according to their source, the KMT caucus thinks that there's nothing they can do about print media regulations right now, but that "After the Liberty Times went electronic, it is now subject to regulation too." The anonymous source is quoted as saying, "Everybody pull close and let's play together. Let's not target one side!"
Of course, it's no surprise to me that the KMT wants to turn this into a tit-for-tat issue despite the lack of any sensible equivalency between the Next Media sale and the Liberty Times operation. The Taipei Times article linked above said it well:
[Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said that unlike the DPP, which] had only focused on the sale of Next Media to the Want Want Group, the KMT opposes all media-monopolization cases[.]
