Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) Taiwan media's coverage of two construction projects in Taiwan and China were "astonishingly off-balance and leaned toward China, " a local media watch group said in a report Thursday.
Forty-seven percent of the media coverage of the Hsuehshan tunnel, the longest tunnel in Taiwan that connects the city of Taipei to the northesatern county of Yilan, was negative, while only 10 percent of the reports on China's Qinghai-Tibet Railway were negative, the report found.
Qinghai-Tibet Railway connects China's Qinghai Province to Tibet Autonomous Region and is the highest rail track in the world. It was constructed according to schedule and encountered few problems, while the Hsuehshan tunnel ran over-schedule and encountered numerous massive technical problems during construction.
Ignoring the social, economic, ecological and cultural impact of the railway showed the decontextualization in the media coverage, said Chin Heng-wei, chief editor of Contemporary magazine.
The railway also presented China's military projection to Tibet, which has been seeking for independence over the years, and reflects China's possible thinking on Taiwan, warned Chung Nien-huang of the media watch group Taiwan Herald Society.
The report, which was released by Broadcasting Development Fund, monitored the news coverage of six electronic media and seven print media before and after the inauguration of both constructions.