According to the Press Freedom Index 2008 published on April 29, 2008 by Freedom House, Press Freedom of Taiwan has been ranked as highest in Asia area mainly because of Taiwan’s progress in judicial independence, liberalized economy, and highly competitive media markets. The report indicates that media in Taiwan operates aggressively with energy and show no avoidance of criticism towards government policy and agents. It is also noted that violence incident toward journalists only happen in some special occasions and both domestic and foreign press are given high freedom.
Freedom House is an independent organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world. Freedom is possible only in democratic political systems in which the governments are accountable to their own people; the rule of law prevails; and freedoms of expression, association, belief and respect for the rights of minorities and women are guaranteed.
Freedom House’s report embraces three evaluation parts: the legal environment for the media, political pressures that influence reporting, and economic factors that affect access to information. In addition to numerical ranking, each country’s media surveyed is ranked as “Free”, “Partly Free” or “Not Free”.
Source: Freedom House. Rearran-ged by
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