Lights, camera, ACTION!

Lights, camera, ACTION!

Without those, Taiwan President-elect Ma Ying-jeou just isn’t the same, say my reporter colleagues. Last week at an arts/culture awards event, Mr Ma was the guest of honor and awards presenter. Naturally, the press was there, not to cover the awards event, but to ask Mr Ma about the USD 29.8 mn foreign affairs scandal going on. On his way out, reporters shouted behind the cordoned area, “President Ma, should President Chen step down and take responsibility for the foreign affairs scandal?”

我的媒體同業說，
沒有媒體在場，準總統馬英九真的不太一樣。
上星期在一個文藝頒獎典禮上，
大家跑去堵馬先生，
問他十億台幣外交醜聞，
陳總統是不是該下台負責？

He smiled, waved his hand and murmured, “I can’t hear what you guys are saying,” and kept walking. Dumb question, but his reply, to the reporters, was even dumber. Some argue that there very little “real reporting” going on in the mainstream media in Taiwan. Whether or not the story is newsworthy, it gets done. Whether or not Mr Ma has anything to do or has a comment about a previous administration’s problems, the story gets done. So when he just kept walking and basically brushed reporters off, it really put them in a bad mood. One of the reporters from TVBS, fuming, said, “we should all just not show up at his appearances for three days in a row the next time he does that. No, better yet, we’ll only have FTV, Sanli and Liberty Times show up, without their cameramen, of course.” (FTV, Sanli and Liberty Times are traditionally pro-independence leaning and Mr Ma is on the other side.)

馬先生笑一笑，手揮一揮說，
”我聽不見你們在說什麼”
然後繼續走去搭車。
記者的問題很笨，
但是對記者來說，
馬先生的回應更笨，
因為不管怎麼樣，
是不是好新聞，還是得做出來。
很生氣，TVBS一個記者就說，
“我們講好，下次他在這樣，
我們三天不要出現在他任何行程。
ㄟ不對，找民視、三立、自由，
但是當然不能帶攝影。”

The reason the TVBS reporter said that is because Mr Ma really isn’t the same without cameramen and photographers present. When Mr Ma was still Taipei City Mayor, I went hiking with him once, on assignment, of course. In between filming, I chatted with the city government cameraman, who documents the mayor on his outings. He said, “you know, he really needs the press. He just lights up when flashes start going off and film starts rolling. He’s a totally different person when the media is present. When he’s among just people, he doesn’t have that glow and energy.”

那TVBS記者會這樣說是因為
馬先生沒有攝影記者在場，
真的不一樣。
當馬準總統還是馬市長的時候，
有一次我帶著攝影和他去爬山，
拍拍拍，休息的時候，
開始跟市政府的攝影聊起天來，
他說”馬英九真的需要媒體，
有閃光燈和攝影機在錄的時候，
他整個人就亮起來，
人完全不一樣，和一般人在一起的時候，
他就沒那光芒、力量。”

Interesting, huh? The line between politics and show biz, especially in Taiwan, is getting blurrier and blurrier.

有趣吧？政治和演藝的界限，
尤其在台灣，真是越來越模糊了。