TVBS media scandal

I refer to the article" TVBS scandal points to credibility problems in Taiwan's media industry".
People are reliant on the media to obtain information, news about their many aspects of life such as weather, entertainment and current affairs. Sad to say for Taiwan, their media is an unreliable source of information, as they forsake their true purpose of existence, to serve the public by reporting accurate news, for ratings, hece they cook up news just so people tune it, regardless of the effects generated due to the fabricated lies. For instance, in this case, a TVBS journalist had filmed a heavily armed gangster making death threats to a rival mob boss, which was obviously an act just to boost ratings, with the fake guns being used and the reluctance to acknowledge the source of the video. This has led to the mobilisation of the police force to investigate the mater, as well as affected people negatively all over the country. This may reflect upon the poor state of Taiwan security, as gangsters have access to firearms, hence putting many at risk, worrying them. The time of the police force has also been compromised due to the investigation, whereby they could have contributed more towards the security of Taiwan. Other such instances include when they falsely reported that duck slaughterhouses made used of asphalt to unfeather ducks, leading to a decline in duck sales, affecting the suppliers and sellers as they had made losses due to the drop in demand.
In my opinion, the media is a powerful tool to influence the minds of the citizens as it is the link between what is happening and what we know as it aims to inform accurately so that we can respond appropriately to the situation, such as for the weather reports and stock market statistics. Hence when inaccurate information is broadcasted, people tend to react to the situations which henceforth are pointless or self-destructive. What aggravates the matter is that since the media reaches out to the masses of Taiwan, the reactions generated will produce significant impacts on the various aspects of the contry. For instance, the boycott of ducks has led to the loss of money in the poultry industry, in turn affecting the whole economy adversely, and hence the many people it consists of. Therefore, i feel that the media should be a responsible and focused media towards the people and the aim of its existence, to provide accurate news, in order to avoid large-scale unneccesary responses to false reports, as well as to inform them for their benefit.
The drop in Taiwan's media standards is due to many reasons such as the cutting of costs in news reporting, and fierce competition in the field of the latter. The extent to which the media's standards have plummeted can be gauged by the lack of trust entrusted in the media itself, such as that only 1% of majo business stakeholder groups rely and trust the media and that media watchdogs warn of an uprising crisis. From cutting corners and peer pressure spawns unethical and underhand means to achieve higher ratings so as to outdo other news reporting stations, which compromises the benefits and in turn affects negatively the citizens they should serve. The government can play a part in preventing this by merging more news stations into 1 corporation so as to eliminate competition in the field, and increasing the budget allocated to the reporting media so that they do not cut costs to compromise reporting standards.