western media bias? on the case of former Taiwan president Chen's scandal

[bushbush]

hmm...former president of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian is having a gigantic scandal right now. He and his family members and other associates (perhaps many more powerful players) have been exposed in stealing campaign funds and other public funds to his oversea accounts as well as engaging in money laundering those spoils. He officially admitted this on aug 14th and more allegations are being investigated.

HOWEVER, while stories like panda-exchange and minor protest against new president Ma are being reported by major news media, this piece of news (biggest news in Taiwan and East Asia for 2 weeks now) is still no where to be found around major western news outlets.

i am just wondering wtf is going on. I was only told about this news by my mother who watches chinese shows and I didn't believe it at first because i didn't see it on CNN, which I dearly believed would at least have a minor report on this sooner or later. I finally believed this until Taiwan news media and other oversea Chinese outlets began to report this juicy story day by day.

here i did a google search on this news.
http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&tab...&sa=N&start=40

the only western outlet shown up seems to be a small AP story on the 14th, and the story never seem to appear in any of the major western media outlets....

[Senno]

The RNC and DNC conventions are grabbing the interest. It might make the back page of world news in the paper eventually, or air-time filler. But Taiwan isn't exactly front page news. The qualifier to your story is "former", as in out of public life, ie old news, hehe.

[danzig]

And on the flip side many of the news media sites reporting it are Chinese related so that would say as much about their media as you are suggesting about western media but, think you missed some since google shows IHT, LA Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, NY Times all reporting on it as well. As Seno said as well Democratic convention, Palin announcement, Republican convention...fraid Taiwan is gonna have to be attacked by Godzilla to get any airtime.

[bushbush]

hmm...so they'd rather panda exchange or minor protest on president Ma then 30 million USD scandal of a former first family and numerous important figures.

as for NY times and other media outlets, where are the reports anyways? I still haven't even seen a clip on major news channels.

[Yorkshireman]

I have'nt seen this mentioned on the news yet and I'm a news junkie. The biggest foriegn news story we have constantly running at the moment is the US Republican convention.

[danzig]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...hpid=sec-world
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...5IGNAD92R5IPG0
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GiM&refer=asia
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug...sident,00.html

Sorry but you are confusing bias with importance factor in a news heavy week. Also as I said many of the links about this are chinese media...so what does THAT tell you about bias?

[bushbush]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...hpid=sec-world
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...5IGNAD92R5IPG0
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GiM&refer=asia
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug...sident,00.html

Sorry but you are confusing bias with importance factor in a news heavy week. Also as I said many of the links about this are chinese media...so what does THAT tell you about bias?

so nothing from major ones like BBC, NY times, CNN and such?

BBC actually reported the protest against Ma, as well as panda exchange, but instead of the 30 million dollar (or more) scandal, which dominated the headline in asia for 2 weeks now.

the reason why there are so many chinese media is:

1. these medias are from taiwan, (using chinese)
2. they are dominant headlines from the region because of its seriousness. I dont think i need to explain why this is more important than panda exchange...

[danzig]

so nothing from major ones like BBC, NY times, CNN and such?

Um I just dug up a few...you said you couldnt find them I found them sorry I dont feel like wading thru the 244 links so idea if BBC has one or why it doesnt if it doesnt.

the reason why there are so many chinese media is:

1. these medias are from taiwan, (using chinese)
2. they are dominant headlines from the region because of its seriousness. I dont think i need to explain why this is more important than panda exchange...

1. Expected since it is a story in that area of the world, how many Hastert scandal news stories were ran there?
2. Understandable but (not speaking for Brits) its just not that important of a story here given the heavy news week. 2 conventions, hurricane etc. The panda thing is a non issue since its fluff human interest thing that takes all but 2 minutes and is forgotten. You are right more coverage would be a good thing of it but you are suggesting it isnt because of bias which I think is just nonsense.

btw, danzig, your sources,
Washington post never had a direct article on Chen, especially his admission. I searched his name on Washington post, i got nothing.

same for foxnews. where were the initial reports when this explosive news emerged?

Dunno why dont you email them? I think the problem is it is explosive to you and to that region but not so much here.

[bushbush]

Um I just dug up a few...you said you couldnt find them I found them sorry I dont feel like wading thru the 244 links so idea if BBC has one or why it doesnt if it doesnt.

well, the major ones certainly didn't report. The ones you found didn't report the most important ones, especially on Chen himself. The most shocking is that at the same time some of the major outlets reported much less important news from Taiwan rather than this piece...i wonder why.

1. Expected since it is a story in that area of the world, how many Hastert scandal news stories were ran there?

well, consider how frequently western media focus on the hotspot of Taiwan, the silence this time is quite unusual. I mean seriously, some damn pandas are more important than a former president getting busted for stealing 30 million or more USD?

at least ONE story on that in 2 weeks? come on...especially CNN and BBC...wtf...

2. Understandable but (not speaking for Brits) its just not that important of a story here given the heavy news week. 2 conventions, hurricane etc. The panda thing is a non issue since its fluff human interest thing that takes all but 2 minutes and is forgotten. You are right more coverage would be a good thing of it but you are suggesting it isnt because of bias which I think is just nonsense.

well, if there were at least ONE mentioning...it'd probably be ok. I mean the Asia section under World on cnn.com. They report much less important everyday and not even an article on this event?

take a look, they have these:
Experts: Internet filtering and censorship rife
Coming soon: 'wallet phones' from Japan

your excuse that somehow the two conventions overshadowed this news is kinda lame...because they reported much less important things at the same time too...while TOTALLy ignoring this crucial news.

Dunno why dont you email them? I think the problem is it is explosive to you and to that region but not so much here.

well, i am just saying, if they could report absolutely worthless news from the same region in front of the whole world, why couldn't they (especially CNN and BBC) at least make ONE mentioning of this scandal...i mean 30 million dollar and former president of Taiwan, who is a super controversial figure throughout his career, this is great news everywhere.

[bushbush]

btw, danzig, your sources,
Washington post never had a direct article on Chen, especially his admission. I searched his name on Washington post, i got nothing.

same for foxnews. where were the initial reports when this explosive news emerged?

[danzig]

Well I agree with you I just dont agree with the reasoning why

[bushbush]

Well I agree with you I just dont agree with the reasoning why

well, did i say my reason yet?

[danzig]

Your thread title suggested it western media bias? I prefer the more likely reason, western media's head up their ass syndrome.
News Director:Taiwan? blah no one cares about taiwan!

[bushbush]

Your thread title suggested it western media bias? I prefer the more likely reason, western media's head up their ass syndrome.
News Director:Taiwan? blah no one cares about taiwan!

you are likely right. I put a great deal of trust on CNN (my homepage and 1st place to get my news everyday) but i guess i will check other places occasionally from now on.

[danzig]

you are likely right. I put a great deal of trust on CNN (my homepage and 1st place to get my news everyday) but i guess i will check other places occasionally from now on.

Honestly Im surprised CNN and BBC doesnt have story on it...they ARE usually good at it and actually went to look specifically on their site just now.

[Mithie]

The Chen scandal's been around for about 2 and a half years now, and everybody and their grandmother knew about it; we just never got a confession out of him until now.

To be honest, I thought 30 million dollars is actually kind of lightweight, considering the size of the honey jar Chen had his hand in, with campaign money from both Taiwanese citizens AND the US government. Either he's very bad at this corruption business, or he's really good at hiding parts of the scandal.

For the record - Ma is so much better at this corruption thing.

[RollingWave]

Today, Chen is detained .

He's so obviously guilty it's not even funny, just watch the crazy things he's blabbing in recent months. first he says all of this is his wife's fault (which is the most semi-plausible debate he thrown up, and it's smart too, since his wife is seriously disabled, so jailing her will prove difficult even if convicted) then later on he started blabbing that this money "Is to fund Taiwan Indpedence" (yes, that would explain why you had 8 years in office and made no strides in that ) and that this is "obvious political prosecution and a cordinated efforts of the KMT and CCP" (yes like the CCP care so much for a political has been, I wouldn't say that the KMT have 0 political motive here, they do, but it's hard to say that any corruption cases against political officals have 0 political motives. and it's hardly false accustion here)

As for news coverage. I agree, I mean simply being suspected isn't exactly huge news, and it's Taiwan, it would be huge news if this was on... say.. Bush.

[ray243]

Come on, deep down, I suspect people and western liberal media hates the idea of Taiwan and china having closer ties.

[RollingWave]

no more than Chinese percieve everyone out there to be conspiring against them. plus, conservative medias are usually much more anti China.

[Daneboy]

It has nothing to do with bias, the internal affairs of Taiwan just isn´t sexy enough to sell as a news story