Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian said Thursday that he and his administration are committed to defending the freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Presiding over the Vivian Wu Journalism Award presentation ceremony, the president said he and his government deem the mass media as a supervisor and judged their own performance upon the opinion of the mass media.
However, Chen went on, a few local media outlets have "debased themselves to spreading groundless rumors under the pressure of competition" and therefore undermine the credibility of themselves and of the democracy that relies heavily on a free and independent press.
Given that the world is quickly integrating into a global community by the rapidly developing communication technology, the damage caused by a false story can be unimaginable, Chen said, which makes journalists' work of verifying information all the more important.
The president said he himself has been the victim of defamation many times. But what really concerns him, he continued, is that ordinary people who are defamed by baseless media reports cannot get fair compensation as easily as public figures can.
He said freedom and responsibility are the two sides of one coin and that the mass media should maintain its valuable freedom by living up to its social responsibility of reporting nothing but the truth.