TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Of the recent controversies involving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤), one of the most unusual of an already highly unusual election season involves when she was either pushed or tripped into a camera tripod, according to the people involved.
With all the controversies swirling around her at the time, at her public appearances, she would be surrounded by journalists all jostling and shouting questions at her in hopes of goading her into giving them a good quote. It is hard to imagine how stressful that must be on a person, and I doubt anyone who has been through that has not come away with at least some emotional scars.
As she was leaving a public appearance, even though she was walking she was still surrounded on all sides in a journalistic scrum. At one point she stumbled into a tripod and hit the crowd.
"Why did you push me?"
As soon as she got back up, clearly furious and nursing her arm, she sharply and repeatedly demanded a CTiTV News reporter answer the question, “Why did you push me?”
The reporter repeatedly denied he had done so and his body language suggested he was hoping to placate Lai. She clearly did not believe him and was very obviously not placated in the least.
To understand the intensity and ferocity of what happened next, one needs to understand the relationship between CTiTV News and the DPP. In short, deep blues and deep greens have taken strong stands for and against the news outlet.
Financial Times reported during the 2020 national election cycle that reporters for both the Taiwanese news outlets Want Want China Times newspaper and CTiTV news received instructions directly from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). These revelations led to abusive libel lawsuits against prominent journalist Kathrin Hille, though in the end they were fortunately dropped.
CTiTV was eventually taken off cable TV after its license was revoked by the National Communications Commission (NCC). The NCC explained the decision by saying the channel had repeatedly violated rules and had been fined many times for factual errors and for giving over half their entire news coverage to the then-China-favored KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜). China Times is still operating normally and CTiTV News is now on YouTube with just shy of 3.2 million subscribers, though usually the number of people watching at any given time is in the thousands or low tens of thousands.
"Green terror"
The pan-blue camp was furious, accusing the Tsai administration of being dictatorial in crushing press freedom and implementing a “green terror.” Pan-greens were happy with the decision, citing all the fines for factual errors and that it was a front for Chinese propaganda and election interference, though no doubt some were happy for purely partisan reasons.
All three opposition presidential candidates have pledged to restore CTiTV News to cable, with the Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) going so far as to say he’d “tear down the NCC and retrain it to bring back fairness and justice for CTiTV News.” This is still very much an active partisan battle.
That evening on Facebook Lai accused the reporter of regular harassment and called him a "fake reporter from the fake news industry." He denied the accusations and CTiTV sued Lai for "slanderous framing" the outlet.
Pan-greens rushed to her defense, while pan-blues came out in a wave against her, with headlines dominated by the partisan fighting. Pan-blue politicians said her fall was "fake" and KMT candidate Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) called her "winner of the Golden Horse award for best actress, aka blame-shifting little princess."
There was a big problem, however. In spite of various outlets having gotten footage of the event, in every single one of them crucial moments are blocked by other reporters crowded around her. In spite of the uncertainty, pan-greens showed slow-motion videos that they said "proved" Lai's side of the story, while pan-blues showed videos that they said "proved" the CTiTV reporter's side of the story and she must have tripped on one of the tripod legs, or faked the whole thing.
What likely happened
Having watched many of these videos, there simply is no conclusive proof one way or the other of what happened. There are some theories that I think are highly unlikely, and one I think is probably what happened.
That Lai was faking the whole thing is highly improbable. From the videos, it was clear from the nature of the fall that she was genuinely shocked and surprised, and had not been expecting it. No one is that good of an actor.
It was also too unusual a set of circumstances, including falling into the tripod, to have been planned. There are safer and easier circumstances to plan a fall if that is the goal. For example, one would not be holding a drink and cell phone in one hand, as she was.
Plus, what the motive be for Lai to stage it? If it were to get that reporter taken off the beat, CTiTV News would simply have sent another.
Judging by the distances and the direction and angle she fell, that she tripped on the tripod also looks unlikely. Lai would also have noticed that fact and would have reacted very differently given the suddenness of what had happened, she did not have enough time to concoct a story about the reporter.
It also seems unlikely that the reporter intentionally pushed her, despite Lai’s claim. That he would have thought, “Now would be a good time to commit felony assault while I’m surrounded by reporters” seems rather unlikely.
In the videos just prior to her fall, it is clear that the reporter was pushing and jostling with the other reporters to keep his pole position right next to her and keep his microphone near her face. In the process, it can be clearly seen that he bumps into Lai with his shoulder and microphone.
The most likely scenario is while jostling he bumped into her hard enough to knock Lai off balance. No doubt hard enough to have felt like an intentional push, even if was accidental.
Justified anger
Even if it was not intentional, Lai is still justified in feeling angry. The reporter was overzealous and was crowding in far more closely to her than is acceptable in any circumstances and can be seen bumping into her prior to her fall.
It is not acceptable for reporters, no matter how much they want to get a juicy quote to actually physically come into contact with their subject. It is not actually important which news outlet this reporter represented, it was his overt crossing of the line that should have been the key issue.
It is a shame that this became a partisan issue when this could have turned out into a positive discussion about what lines reporters can cross, and which they cannot when pursuing a story.