Mr. Lin, a married man and well known business entrepreneur, was in the company of an attractive television actress, with whom he says he shares a platonic friendship. Mr. Lin claims suspicious cars have been following him lately, and on that day his pursuers seemed to act even more aggressively than expected. He told police he feared he was being tailed by kidnappers, and wanted to call attention to his plight. So Lin reportedly crashed his car into the other vehicle to force it to a halt. 

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The general view of this event may well be that "Next" magazine was only doing its job when it sent photo-hounds yapping at the businessman's heels. He knew the photographers were after pictures, but, being shy of personality, and camera-shy in particular, Lin felt his privacy was under attack, and resented it. ²

I think there is more to say here. 

Like all popular publications, "Next" magazine is a business, and a business needs profits to survive. Profits depend on sales. You want to sell your magazine or newspaper? Then give your readers what they want. "Next" says juicy stories about celebrities, with matching pictures, are what its readers want. The magazine has a point. There's been plenty of squawk about the publication, but no lack of public interest. "Next" files off newsstands with the speed of a bullet. My Dad would say the magazine is as hot as a two dollar pistol. 

The problem of media rights sometimes conflicting with privacy rights is an old one, of course, and no one expects it to be easily solved. ³ One reason these conflicts may more often occur here than elsewhere is because of historical factors.
 
 

The people of Taiwan waited a long time for the lifting of martial law and the developing of a free press. It takes a certain length of years for any society to appreciate the responsibilities, and not only the blessings of that special freedom. Publishers and readers alike need time for their understandings of media and freedom to mellow and mature. 

When martial law ended, most of us probably envisioned a free press as primarily related to politics. This view seemed validated by the simultaneous emergence of an opposition party system, the increase in the number of local newspapers, various political reforms, and public acceptance of other new freedoms. 

But another cause of tension between media and privacy rights is the combination of changes in Taiwan's "press culture" in recent years. There are times when I believe some of our newspapers long ago obliterated the line that separates tabloid sensationalism from legitimate journalism. ⁴
 
 

Only a few years ago, I never imagined that freedom of expression in Taiwan would one day result in our current newspaper scene. We welcome into our homes a bushel of daily papers that devote gobs of space to entertainment figures, replete with greasy bits of scandal, intimate details about their personal lives, and tangy, mouth-watering photographs.⁵

Perhaps I'm just getting more crotchety, but I really am tired of photos of troubled actresses in hospital beds as they are treated for drug overdoses. I'm amazed, but my taste has almost disappeared for pictures of pretty stars dressed down to their underwear. And believe it or not, I could probably live in peace without reading one more interview that pressures our youngest pop singers to talk about their romantic lives, or publicly apologize for lacking figures with the classic contours of Zhang Ziyi or Gong-li. 

Considering many of our current newspapers, "Next" magazine just had to come next. We the public of Taiwan prepared the way for its arrival very nicely indeed. Lin Chin-lung would do well to be mad at more than a pack of camera-toting hound dogs and a single magazine. 

Bauer, Daniel J. "Collision of Media Rights, Privacy Rights Our Own Fault." The China Post 29 July 2001, natl. ed.: