Perhaps nothing better indicates the extraordinary changes in Taiwan over the past decade than the evolution of political magazines. Given today's wide-open environment for the print media, it is sometimes difficult to recall that even in the early 1980s the government was still regularly confiscating magazines that criticized martial law provisions, advocated the formation of new political parties, or gave coverage to events in Mainland China. And a possible stint in jail still worried those publishers and editors who went so far as to question the desirability of unification with the mainland.
All foreign publications also paid a visit to government offices for review before being distributed. In line with official policy toward Mainland China, if Time or Newsweek carried stories on the PRC, local magazine distributors were told to remove the pages or have the issue confiscated. Later, censorship relaxed a bit. Photos of Beijing's Communist leaders could be shown, but only with the Chinese character for "bandit" stamped on their faces, and offending items such as the red stars on the caps of PLA soldiers were blotted out.
But Taiwan's tremendous leap in trade power and economic wealth during the eighties helped bring an end to all this. Closer integration with the rest of the world, especially the United States, helped stimulate pressure on the government to eliminate many of its restrictions on the media. Local businesses with branches or representatives in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Japan could not afford to have an issue of The Asian Wall Street Journal or the Far Eastern Economic Review delayed or destroyed because a picture, story, or advertisement offended government censors. The island's international economy needed an international press, and the freer access to overseas information in turn forced a relaxation on the local press.
By the time martial law was lifted in July 1987, the tight control of the press was already loosening. Within six months, in January 1988, the government removed the old restrictions on the total number of newspapers allowed to publish, as well as the limitation on their length set at twelve pages in the 1950s.
But the eased restrictions on newspapers were actually far behind magazines. By the early 1980s, the government was already backing off from its heavy hand on the many tangwai (outside the ruling party) magazines. Instead of closing them down and jailing their editors, as in the sixties and seventies, the Garrison Command usually just confiscated particularly offensive issues. The policy changed in part because there were some in the government hierarchy—including a few at the very top—who saw these overtly political and often obnoxious magazines (many were sensational enough to be considered scandal sheets) as good safety valves for dissident dissatisfactions.
After the society-shaking reforms of the eighties—formation of opposition parties, lifting of martial law, legalization of public demonstrations, and opening of travel to the mainland, to name but a few—tangwai political magazines faced a wholly new environment, one that had a major impact on their content. Their raison d'être had to be radically redefined. The steady journalistic diet of challenging political taboos and promoting political liberalization had been co-opted by a changed system.
The first reaction to heightened press freedom was a media explosion. In 1989, according to government statistics, the number of political magazines alone soared to 303. But quantity did not necessarily mean quality, and an inevitable shakeout occurred. Between 1989 and 1991, the number of primarily political publications shrank to 240 (few had substantial circulation figures), partially a result of increased political reportage by newspapers. In danger of losing out completely to the daily papers and the large format weekly tabloids, which also expanded political coverage, the owners of political magazines saw they had to shift the focus of their reporting or shut down.
Ask about top contemporary political magazines, and one title will be on everyone's list: The Journalist. Widely read by members of all local political parties as well as by foreign observers of the Taiwan scene, it was born just as martial law was lifted. A weekly with current sales of about 23,000 copies, The Journalist was the brain child of four senior newspaper men who had worked for years on the China Times, one of the island's largest dailies, and on several tangwai magazines.
"We thought that only when the opposition party possessed freedom of speech could real professional journalism be established—and only professional journalism could help supervise legislative politics and promote judicial independence," says Publisher Antonio Chiang (江春男). "In [September] 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] was formed, and we knew that martial law was about to be abolished. A year later, we started our magazine."
The Journalist at first focused exclusively on political news. "We considered ourselves the 'second media,'" says Man aging Editor Wang Chien-chuang (王健壯). “We differentiated ourselves from the mainstream newspapers that were acting as official mouthpieces, and we also intended to change the overall attitudes of the press about the political culture. In short, we tried to build a consensus among our colleagues that there was nothing that couldn't be reported on." The orientation paid off, especially in the first few years after martial law, Wang explains, because the internal operations of the KMT were not clear and the tangwai political figures were still trying to lay the foundation of a strong, functioning party.
The magazine's early emphasis on tangwai politics gave many readers the impression that it was highly partisan, but Wang disagrees. "We didn't side with any political party, nor were we burdened with any kind of ideology," he says. "Our reports on the tangwai were not based on sympathy for a minority on the political stage, but on a respect for the facts—the influence of the tangwai was substantial, it did exist!" As such, Wang concludes, it deserved more coverage in the media, especially since radio and television were still heavily control led by the KMT-led government.
But The Journalist did not escape the reawakening powers of newspapers following the removal of restrictions in January 1988. The dailies also started covering opposition politics, and they had rich financial and human resources to do the job. The magazine had to adjust. "We shifted our political interest from challenging political taboos to reporting policymaking," Wang says. "By clarifying the process of decision-making, we help our readers see how political inner circles operate, and also if any conflicts of interest are involved. Because the daily newspapers are caught up in routine news reporting, they don't have adequate space and time for the sort of in-depth reports that a weekly does."
Over the last two years, the contents of the magazine have mirrored another shift in the political environment. Economics and financial issues are now regular features. "These reports focus on the relationships between entrepreneurs and politicians," Wang says. "Businesspeople have contributed to opening new quasi diplomatic channels, but the collaboration—and even collusion—between politicians and businesspeople has become very confusing."
The magazine has also added cultural topics to its pages. The editors determined that readers have a growing repugnance toward politics, but are becoming more interested in cultural subjects. "There is no real cultural news or art reviews in the local press—there's only cultural PR," Wang says. "The local press only reports the social activities of literary circles. We want to provide real cultural news." As The Journalist has included a broader range of subjects, and adopted a more neutral political stance, its readership has changed. "We lost many radical readers, but won more in the business field," says Editor in Chief Hsu Ching-yun (徐青雲). She says the magazine can now be defined as a "metropolitan intellectual magazine."
Although the Taiwan Weekly, first published last October, calls itself a political magazine, it also covers economics, finance, and culture. It models itself on Time and Newsweek, and even has a cover design similar to the latter. But inside it is heavy on local news. About 85 percent of the articles concern Taiwan, and the emphasis is primarily on the activities of the DPP. Although the editors are sensitive to being labeled an opposition publication, their own affiliation with the DPP is well known. The weekly's financial backer, as well as the honorary publisher and president, are all members of the opposition party.
Still, Gau Tian-sheng (郭天生), director of the news division, says it is wrong to consider the Taiwan Weekly a DPP mouthpiece. "We never try to sway our readers deliberately," he says. "Even though our boss complains when we carry negative reports on DPP members, we still try not to be affected by any political bias. Our primary concern is to find out where the news is." Although the Taiwan Weekly claims to provide a set of viewpoints different from those of The Journalist, Gau says they still share the same readership.
Both magazines suffer a bit from a lack of reader confidence, especially on investigative political stories. "Local political magazines never give the sources of their information," says Chung Yung-tai (鍾雍泰), a long-time reader of these publications. "We readers are only given opening sentences like, 'According to a reliable source,' or 'A high-ranking official who refuses to reveal his name says.' I always wonder where they get the information, or if they just make it up."
Gau Tian-sheng, who is also Taiwan Weekly's chief reporter, argues that the approach is essential. "Reporters have to protect their sources of information," he says. "We have to keep them for future stories. Most of our reporters worked for newspapers before, so they have good connections with officials and political figures that have access to valuable information."
Jean Chiou, bureau chief of The Nineties—"Our analyses of cross-strait relations are quite strong. Many local newspapers adapt or reprint our articles."
The Nineties, another widely read political monthly is building a reputation for carrying political news in a broader context, covering Greater China—Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. This is perhaps not surprising since it was first established (under a different name) two decades ago in Hong Kong. The Taiwan edition was introduced in 1990, and its publication also says something about the changing media atmosphere in Taiwan. "The government's policy during the late 1980s banned the importation of most overseas magazines printed in Chinese," says Jean Chiou ( 邱近思 ), Taiwan bureau chief of The Nineties. "Not until the introduction of [the Chinese language news magazine] Asia week to Taiwan in 1989, did we learn that the government's Mainland China policy might change. We checked with Government Information Office officials and started our magazine the next year."
In the local version of The Nineties, only one-third of the coverage is dedicated to Taiwan affairs; the rest is split equally between Mainland China and Hong Kong. "The reason The Nineties is classified as a political magazine is that its political reviews, particularly our analyses of cross-strait relations, are quite strong," Chiou says, "Many local newspapers adapt or reprint our articles. Compared to local magazines, we can avoid taking only Taiwan's political position—we can see the cross strait issue as a whole."
This now requires more economic reporting. According to a survey done by the magazine last year, nearly 50 percent of its readers are in finance and business. "Because of their investments in mainland China, they read The Nineties to keep in touch with the latest trends in cross strait political and economic policies," Chiou says.
DPP Legislator Trong R. Chai, publisher of the Congressional Journal Bi-Weekly Report—"All of this information is compiled by my assistants based on official documents from the Legislative Yuan."
Two years ago, yet another shift in the political magazine scene took place, prompted by the retirement of the senior legislators who had been frozen in office for forty years. In December 1992, with a new, fully elected Legislative Yuan in place, legislators had to start responding to their constituents as well as to their party leaders. "The political focus shifted to the Legislature," says Shen Cheng-huang (沈正晃), vice president of the Congressional Journal Bi- Weekly Report, explaining the new need for political magazines.
The Bi-Weekly Report, established in April 1993, is financed by DPP legislator Trong R. Chai (蔡同榮) and some close supporters. Modeled on the privately funded and highly respected Congressional Quarterly: Weekly Report in the United States, it provides outlines of public hearings, party debates on selected public policy issues, voting records, and the progress of key bills. "All of this information is compiled by my assistants based on official documents from the Legislative Yuan," Chai says. Although more balanced in its content than many of the other recent political magazines, the coverage of DPP positions tends to be more complete.
Lu Ya-li (呂亞力), a professor in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University, says that the new magazines are more like newsletters and are therefore geared primarily to engender support for individual legislators. "It's good for them to tell their constituents what they are doing," he says. "But they tell everything from their own point of view; readers cannot check their reliability. What we need is an objective re port, like the Congressional Record in the United States, published by the Legislative Yuan itself."
Some other newsletter-cum-magazines of this sort include the China Forum, established in July 1992 by Chen Chih-chi ( 陳志奇), and the New Parliament Magazine, set up in September 1993 by Legislator Lin Cheng-chieh ( 林正杰 ). Both magazines have ties with the non-mainstream faction of the KMT and with the New Party, established last year by former KMT members. Their common ground is a strong desire for a clear unification policy toward the mainland and an equally strong rejection of any suggestion of Taiwan independence. At first, these magazines were available at no charge. Later, they set up marketing and advertising departments and added a cover price of around US$4 per copy. They usually focus on domestic and foreign affairs, defense, budgetary matters, and social welfare legislation. Most have politically homogeneous personnel structures: publishers, advisors, editorial board, and reporters/legislative assistants all belong to the same party and support the same legislator.
Yet another insight into the contemporary magazine scene comes from The Masses, an overtly Marxist publication that has deliberately distanced itself from all political parties. Publisher Chang Chin-tse (張金策) says The Masses, first issued in March 1993, promotes labor and farmer movements in order to wage a war against the ruling power. Even though the editorial stance says violence is the only way to overthrow the ruling class, and the magazine includes stories on how to mount demonstrations, the government has chosen to ignore the publication.
"The Masses doesn't even identify with the DPP, which is basically led by the middle class and the intelligentsia, while we think that the labor class is the real momentum in social reform," Chang says. He explains that The Masses is not just a magazine. "Besides presenting our convictions, it provides a way to bring together people with the same ideals. Actually, social activism is our real vocation." (True to his words, a few days after this interview in early August, Chang helped lead a major demonstration in Taipei's central district to protest the government's closing of illegal radio stations, many of which are politically oriented.)
Deadlines, deadlines—Most congressional magazines are more like newsletters. To date, there is no local equivalent to the Congressional Record in the United States.
The twenty full-time staff members of the monthly pride themselves on being more than reporters or editors. They are also activists, setting up meetings in temples, night markets, and public parks to promote environmental protection, women's rights, and better benefits for laborers and Taiwan's indigenous tribes people. In fact, the staff became so active that the magazine suspended publication in May in order to help a number of candidates run for local offices. At the time, the magazine was selling about one thousand copies a month during its street activities. Although Chang targets laborers and blue-collar workers, roughly half of his readers are actually members of the middle class and local intelligentsia.
"Political magazines no longer represent political groups," says Professor Lu Ya-li. "Instead, they speak for individuals or minority groups like laborers—or else they have become more commercially oriented. Their diverse style indicates that people's political thinking tends to be more mature and pluralistic." But Lu complains that political reporting still needs to set higher standards. "People read the investigative stories out of curiosity and dissatisfaction. They don't care about the accuracy of the news. Political magazines generally do not depend on intellectuals who demand accuracy. They speak to a larger audience." But at least, Lu concludes, the environment for political discourse has improved. "The government now has a more tolerant attitude toward dissident voices," he says, "at least in terms of its policy toward political magazines."