The singular of "media" is "medium," which is defined as "an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted." Theoretically, the media, on the one hand, should faithfully transmit information to people; on the other hand, they should allow individuals to freely express their opinions without distortion. Ideally, the media should exist as a public realm that cannot be manipulated by the power of corporations or governments, wherein those holding the various opinions and viewpoints within society can rationally communicate and reach consensus.

Yet the positive qualities of the media in modern society are often constrained or unfulfilled for various reasons. In order to capture audience share, the media have grown chock full of bias, sensationalism and ideology. And the fourth estate, meant to be a guardian of people's rights, has instead become an executioner, infringing on people's rights.

In the pursuit of ratings, the press sometimes resembles frenzied sharks when on the trail of a news story. Originally the "fourth power" and a watchdog looking out for the rights of citizens, it has deviated into a human-rights-stomping ogre.

The media as killer?

The media have come to believe that they automatically hold the moral high ground. Consequently, cases of them infringing on people's rights have grown too numerous to count.

In March of this year, the media exposed a student-teacher relationship at a junior high school in Taichung. Because the relationship involved sex, the male teacher, whose surname was Chang, was brought up on charges. In reporting on this case Apple Daily not only used banner headlines and brazenly took photos and names of the teacher from the school's website; it also included, off to the side, a picture of the under-age student from the school's yearbook. It blurred her eyes with the mosaic effect, but did nothing to change the rest of her face, her cheeks or her hair. Anyone who knew her could recognize her.

After the case broke, Chang's emotional state became unstable, and he once appealed to reporters not to reveal his name, lest he commit suicide. But the staff of Apple Daily concluded at an internal meeting that "criminals are not entitled to society's protection." Consequently, the paper acted as if it were a court, exposing the person's identity and casting moral aspersions on the victim without waiting for a verdict. It even published computer graphics of a man and woman taking a bath together. All in all, it was extremely sensational coverage.

Apple Daily infringed upon the victim's rights by "conducting a trial in the press." Chang hanged himself the day the report was issued, and his family angrily described the whole incident as a "media slaying."

Apart from acting as judge and jury, the media also frequently follow police on raids, behaving as if they were law enforcement officers and invading people's privacy. For instance, the police once raided a party of gay men. It turned out that a lot of the men were HIV positive. Happy to pounce upon one of their favorite prey, the media not only unscrupulously exposed the identities of the men but also characterized the event as a "promiscuous gay party."

After the incident, the media not only revealed the men's identities, but also said with certainty that those who were HIV-positive were intentionally spreading AIDS. Yet, with no concrete evidence of any crimes, the case was thrown out. The court, moreover, cited the constitution's explicit protection of human rights and emphasized that the law in no way limited the rights of homosexuals or people with AIDS to attend parties.

And yet, however prudent and clear the court's decision, it was no match for the swift and arbitrary violence of the media: One gay man in his twenties who had attended the party couldn't bear the social pressure that arose from the publicity and jumped to his death from a high floor.

Incidents of the media impinging on people's rights occur every day. Wu Hau-jen, president of the Taiwan Association of Human Rights, says that invasion of privacy is the most common infringement, such as when a college student commits suicide and the media detail all of his personal information. Such exposure causes a second painful blow to the family. Or a cable news channel might secretly shoot footage of a junior high school girl kissing her boyfriend and then show it around the clock. Such reporting delivers a severe psychological blow to the victim.

Wu explains that the excessive commercialization of Taiwan's mainstream media leads them to resort to sensationalism and playing upon prejudices so as to gain market share. In the process they trample upon the rights of disadvantaged groups. Mainland Chinese brides, for instance, are portrayed as prostitutes, and the children of mixed marriages as sad and suffering learning difficulties. Homosexuality is equated with being HIV-positive. Mental illness means public menace, and women's rights are the same thing as sexual liberation. All of these stereotypes tarnish the names of disadvantaged groups. As a result, Wu laments that the media has gone far beyond being the fourth estate. It tramples on human rights and holds itself accountable to no one. As "the one and only estate," it lacks monitoring and balance.

Although people have long expressed dissatisfaction with the media, they have traditionally been powerless to oppose it. As a result, they have founded media monitoring organizations, which, by speaking for many, are gradually becoming a social force to balance the media.

The education of children of "foreign brides" (right) and the work situations of the mentally challenged (facing page) are often stereotypically portrayed by the media as being filled with sorrow or as "potential social problems."

Gopher War

Established in 1999, Media Watch is the media oversight group that is most active. It also has the greatest public credibility. Its current chairman, Kuang Chung-hsiang, an associate professor of mass communications at Shih Hsin University, uses the analogy of the video game "Gopher War" to describe Media Watch's standpoint. He believes that monitoring media ills is a lot like playing that game. The monitors have an inherently weak position and only two ways of handling the situation: The first is to find more likeminded people to help with monitoring; and the second is to "pull the plug" and thereby reflect upon how the rules of the game allow media abuses to continue unabated.

While assessing the general quality of media content, Media Watch also determinedly focuses on one particular aspect: whether the media infringes upon people's rights. For example, the media often tarnishes the reputations of the mentally ill, seriously infringing upon their rights. In a series of articles involving the mentally ill, the United Daily News included condescending and prejudiced phraseology, such as "more trouble from the mentally ill," "a ticking bomb," and "out of control." With the help of advocacy groups for the mentally and physically disabled, Media Watch launched a protest campaign with Internet links and real-world demonstrations. When the media reports on these issues now, they are much more prudent about the language they use.

Everybody a watchdog

Media Watch also encourages citizens to speak out when they see the media behaving badly. Its website includes a chart showing the public's assessment of television programs. People with complaints can fill out a form and fax it to Media Watch, and the organization will pass along their comments to the relevant media outlets and government agencies. This year Media Watch established an online media monitoring system. Members of the public can fill out a form online, and Media Watch will immediately process such reports. It regularly announces the results of monitoring and any media improvement. In place for half a year, the system has gathered more than 200 submissions, ranging from complaints about the commercialization of programming to criticism of the bizarre content of dramatic serials. They show the extent of public dissatisfaction with Taiwan's media.

In the past, doubts have been raised about media monitoring. It has been described as didactic in nature and largely a matter of value judgments. Mindful of this skepticism, Media Watch has steered clear of attacking media content for being lowbrow. In Taiwan, "The urgent task of media monitors is protecting the public from having their rights trampled," Kuang says. "It's not to be a judge of taste or values."

The explosion of new channels following the introduction of cable television has seen a swell in citizens calling for supervision of the media. This is a "TV wall" inside a television news station used to oversee program content.

The disadvantaged speak up

If Media Watch represents monitoring of the media by regular citizens, then the Citizens' Coalition for Media Reform, set up jointly by a large number of NGOs, represents the collective voice of disadvantaged groups about the media.

In July 2005, when licenses were renewed for satellite channels, 21 citizens' groups, including those advocating for women, gays, children, and the physically and mentally disabled, joined together to form the coalition. Now, a year later, almost 70 organizations have joined, including groups concerned with medical issues, education, the environment, native peoples' rights, and community colleges. It's a very broad-based coalition.

The Awakening Foundation, which focuses on women's rights, was a founding member. Wang Cheng-tong, director of media and education at Awakening, says the foundation had long been concerned about how the media used derogatory terms to describe women, gays, children and the mentally and physically disabled, and how these depictions resulted in negative stereotypes within society. Hence they decided to join the coalition and harness the power of the people to monitor the media.

Like Media Watch, the groups working on behalf of disadvantaged groups in the Citizens' Coalition are most concerned about media invasions of people's privacy. Consequently, soon after its founding the coalition published a Guide to News Reporting and Human Rights. The guide examines how the current sensationalistic media environment leads to infringements of people's rights, and offers suggestions.

Under pressure from the coalition, when cable channel operators formed the Satellite Television Broadcast Association in March 2006, they specially established a "news self-discipline committee" and a "news advisory committee." The Citizens' Coalition helped draw up the charter for the self-discipline committee and even inserted much of the spirit of its reporting guide into the charter. Furthermore, coalition members were given seven of the 24 seats on the advisory committee. It was a rare instance of an advocacy group working closely with the media.

In the past the relationship between these advocacy groups and the media was largely adversarial, fraught with protests and invective. The coalition has now changed tack, trying to establish channels of communications that can benefit both sides. Although the self-discipline committee has no power to impose fines and the media's current performance still shows many instances of their breaking the charter, at the very least the inclusion of the coalition does give it legitimacy when it requests that the media be fair in its reporting. "We're trying to work within the system and diligently offer our opinions, but if time proves that our efforts are ineffective, we are prepared to go back to protesting outside the system."

The examples of Media Watch and the Citizens' Coalition for Media Reform show that both ordinary citizens, and advocacy groups representing the disadvantaged, are beginning to understand that they need to act in solidarity to protect their own rights when up against the strength of the media. The relationship between the media and the public is neither purely adversarial nor purely cooperative. Just as the media are constantly assessing the situation of society, the public too has to continually put a magnifying glass up to the media so as to monitor whether they are doing good or ill.

Guide to News Reporting and Human Rights

1. Respect the right to privacy

•Respect the wishes of interview subjects and prohibit secretly photographing subjects without their consent.

•Sexual orientation and personal sexual preferences are private matters that have nothing to do with the public interest. One should never comment on the sexual orientation or sex lives of public officials, film or singing stars, or ordinary members of the public without their consent.

•Do not coax children or teenagers into interviews or follow them into order to report or take photos without both their consent and the consent of their guardian. If the guardian consents but the child does not, one must respect the child's wishes.

2. Crime reporting

•Criminals have basic human rights. For instance, if police raid a party because people are taking Ecstasy, and the people arrested are naked, one should not broadcast or publish videos or photos of them naked.

•Strictly abide by the principle of not publicizing ongoing investigations. For instance, police surveillance video or photos should not be broadcast or published.

•Don't report on cases before a final judgment has been issued, and don't release information about victims, suspects and other people related to the case. (This applies especially to cases of domestic violence and sexual assault, abuse or harassment, and to the homes and shelters of minors.)

•Don't describe the circumstances and course of a crime on excessive detail by such methods as dramatization, drawings or animation.

•Don't glorify criminals or suicide victims.

•Emphasize finding solutions in the system, rather than blaming the victim.

3. News involving hospitals, illness, or suicide

•Hospitals aim to save people's lives and protect patients' lives and rights. Reporters shouldn't recklessly enter hospitals and thereby disturb patients' peace and hospital operations.

•Reporters should be barred from entering emergency rooms to report or take photos.

•Television stations should not engage in placement marketing for pharmaceutical companies or doctors, broadcasting misleading information about drugs, or infringing upon patients' rights.

•With regard to suicides, the media should avoid speculation or excessively repeating their reports, so as to avoid causing further distress to the victim's family and friends.

•Out of respect for the dead, avoid showing close-up or otherwise insensitive images of corpses.

4. Reporting on disadvantaged groups

•When reporting on disadvantaged groups, avoid "labeling" them or treating them with condescension. For instance, avoid labeling women who have recently immigrated as "foreign brides" or "mainland brides." To avoid condescension, one should especially avoid subjective moral judgments in reporting on subjects such as the mentally or physically disabled, pregnancy out of wedlock, or youths who exhibit deviant behavior.

•Avoid negative stereotyping of disadvantaged groups, such as by constantly reporting on criminal activities or social problems among youths, Aborigines, single parents, divorcees, or marriages that include a foreign spouse.

•Avoid emphasizing the "otherness" and "strangeness" of disadvantaged groups.

5. Don't objectify women

•Don't accept advertisements that commercialize the female body, or advertisements from marriage agents.

•Don't use words that objectify women's bodies, such as, "F4 girls are paid NT$2500 per breast in appearance money" or "the breasts of an F4 girl are insured for NT$200 million."

Media monitoring organizations in Taiwan

•Media Watch http://www.mediawatch.org.tw/

•Citizens's Coalition for Media Reform http://blog.yam.com/citizenwatch/

•Campaign for Media Reform http://www.twmedia.org/

•Media Monitoring Alliance http://www.mma.org.tw/

•National Communications Commission http://www.ncc.tw/