她在海峡两岸飞翔

亦侠亦柔女记者

周荃祖籍在浙江省江山市吴村乡水晶山底村。1949年上半年，周荃的父亲周文钦当时还是个20多岁的小伙子，从福建厦门坐船渡过台湾海峡，到台北探望二姐。没想到一去就回不来了，只好在二姐家暂住下来。后来他在台南的成功大学找了一份差事，工作勤奋、认真负责，几年后，便从一名普通的职员提升为成功大学附工事务主任。后来他便与家在台南的一位姑娘结了婚，于1956年生下了小周荃。转眼间，周荃出落成一位亭亭玉立的美女。她从台湾文化大学新闻系毕业后，先到台湾“华视”公司工作，后在正声广播公司当记者，1979年又以优异的成绩考入了台湾“中视”公司新闻部，从此与电视新闻采播结缘。周荃在“中视”当记者时，第一次出去采访就做了一件挺侠义的事。那天下午，她路过台北狮子林广场时，看到一些在街头靠给人画像谋生的“户外画家”，突然拎起画夹和小椅子，拼命地往小巷里跑，连丢在地上的画笔也不要了。周荃正大惑不解时，只见广场对面走过来几位巡警。周荃一打听，方知这些巡警常以“户外画家”在街头给人画像影响市容为由，抓住他们轻则罚款，没收画具，重则拘留。难怪“户外画家”见到巡警犹如“老鼠见到猫”一样害怕。周荃对此愤愤不平，这不是不让人谋生吗?!于是，她决意站出来为“户外画家”讨个公道。她扛着沉重的摄像机在小巷里找到数十名“户外画家”，还有许多市民和官员及巡警，历时一年多时间，先后在“中视新闻节目”中，连续做了30多次专题报道，引起了社会各界的关注，最后那些“户外画家”可以名正言顺地在街头为人画像了。

不久，在一个月黑风高的夜晚，她又和同事去拍摄一些偷宰毛猪和搞水注肉的屠宰场的现场批评报道。他们一下电视采访车，便见一群脸上充满敌意、身上穿着血衣、手里握着明晃晃杀猪刀的无证屠工围了过来，并发出“杀、杀、杀”的威胁声。可周荃却脸无惧色，大胆地迎了上去。在无证屠工们的威胁、叫骂和拉扯中，完成了极为艰难的采访任务。回来上车时，周荃发现电视采访车的轮胎已被无证屠工用杀猪刀割破了。

周荃对不正之风刚正不阿，而面对基层的民众，却极富有同情心。有一天，周荃接到一封观众来信，说是有位叫晓涵的少女遭遇不幸。她立即跑到警察局等有关部门查询，整整查了两天两夜，终于救出被逼上绝境的晓涵，并像大姐姐一样关怀晓涵的生活。

周荃的侠骨柔情，赢得了台湾新闻界同行的称道，有些观众还给了她一个“周青天”的雅号。

追求真相的董事长

周荃在“中视”当了9年的记者、主持人、女主播后，曾出来从政9年。1994年2月15日，她创办了台湾第一家有线电视台――真相电视台。这是全球华人社会第一家有线电视新闻网，范围覆盖亚、美、欧地区，收视人口达数千万。就这样，她成了台湾有线电视的“妈祖婆”。

为了办好真相电视台，周荃就去请台湾著名作家李敖先生出来做节目。李敖愉快地接受了邀请，在真相电视台开了一档《李熬笑傲江湖》的节目。《李敖笑傲江湖》的节目开播不久，便在海内外华人中引起轰动，收视率迅速攀升。他每天晚上10点开始讲，一般讲半个小时，四五年时间讲了1000集，有许多观众不看他的节目就睡不着觉。李敖很感激这位把他牵上荧屏的“美女”，多次在公开场合这样说：“对于周荃，我怀有一种特殊的情感，与其说是伯乐知遇，管鲍之情，倒不如说我欣赏她的执着、勇气与眼光，她真了不起。因为有周荃，才有今日电视上的李敖。”2000年7月，周荃还促成李敖回大陆访问探亲，在海内外引起良好反响。

周荃担任真相电视台董事长后，对报道方向进行了重大调整，把真相电视台从一个综合台转向“两岸财经台”，大幅度增加了对祖国大陆的报道内容，全力搭建一座海峡两岸信息沟通的桥梁。除了保留一些有影响的主打节目外，周荃新开了由台湾著名艺人凌峰主持的《台湾心大陆情》节目，还有《聚焦两岸新闻》《来去大陆》《中国企业英雄榜》《上海AB股到台湾》等一系列节目，同时还播出北京电视台拍摄的《流年》《千里共婵娟》等纪录片。当周荃获悉江苏摄制了一部反映张学良、蒋纬国等170多位主人公的纪录片《血脉》后，就通过真相电视台执行副总经理郑又平教授等人要来样片。她当即拍板将《血脉》放在传统节日端午节期间在真相电视台播出，告诉人们不要忘记自己的祖国和根。《血脉》播出后，在海内外华人中引起强烈反响。

作为真相电视台的董事长，周荃每天有大量的策划、审片和行政管理事务要做，可以说忙得日夜连轴转。但对于一些重大采访活动和重要节目，她总是亲自披挂上阵。5年前，在中共十六大开幕期间，她亲自带领一个阵容强大的采访组前往北京采访，用全新的视角，摄制了大量的深度报道，向台湾人民全面介绍了中共十六大的空前盛况。同时，她自己也在采访会议的同时，成了一个新闻人物，在许多媒体上频频亮相。此外，她自己还在真相电视台主持了一档《周荃泡咖啡》节目，评论两岸的一些事情，受到了观众的欢迎。

在海峡两岸飞翔

2003年，周荃在一次乘飞机时，在一本航空杂志上看到刊登在上面的一则《清华大学经济管理学院EMBA招收新生信息》，她就报名参加了学习。虽然开学后的第一个月就遇上了“闹非典”，听课也很辛苦，但她还是坚持认真学习。她说：“从我第一次踏上大陆土地的那一刻，不仅有回家的感觉，而且眼界大开。到清华大学后，我更看到了这里是藏龙卧虎之地，各种人才很多，老师水平很高，我可以一边‘充电’，一边结交新的朋友，进一步丰富我的人生。”她还鼓励在台湾的一些亲人、朋友、同行，有机会一定要到大陆走一走、看一看、学一学，相信一定能满载而归的。其实你只要跨过台湾海峡，就跨上了另一个新的更大的舞台，这里有世界顶尖的500强大企业和190多个国家的人员往来。在大陆这片创业的热土上，台湾同胞不仅可以寻找到新的发展机遇，而且可以与大陆同胞一道，共创中国人的21世纪。

在清华大学读书期间，周荃还着手筹建清华大学台湾同学会，并被选为会长。周荃一直在努力搭建海峡两岸沟通的桥梁，为两岸同胞的各种交流牵线。2005年3月，她组织台湾清华大学EMBA企业家同学到北京清华大学参观学习，并考察了中国网通、联想集团等著名企业。3个月后，她又组织北京清华大学的老师和EMBA企业家同学，到台湾清华大学出席“首届两岸清华论坛”，这项活动被称为“两岸清华破冰之旅”。2006年6月，周荃又组织80名台湾大学生、研究生到上海复旦大学和上海、苏州、昆山参观，使台湾学生对祖国大陆有了更新的认识。8月初，周荃又率台湾的高中校长们来到苏州，出席著名教育家叶圣陶研究会与国家教育部所属的中国教育学会高中教育专业委员会联合举办的“第二届两岸高中校长教育论坛”，就两岸当前的高中教育开展有益的交流。同时，周荃又担任了“第三届中华儒商国际论坛”的副主席，大会专门委托她负责在两岸经商的台湾企业家中推选出十佳“儒商”代表人物与企业，于2006年9月底组团去山东曲阜出席“孔子文化节”，并接受大会的颁奖。这一系列的文化经济交流活动，让周荃忙得不亦乐乎。但她觉得并不累，而且还挺有成就感。她高兴地说：“我的血液里流淌着两岸的DNA，我爱大陆也爱台湾，为海峡两岸做贡献是我最快乐的事。所以我要为海峡两岸的父老乡亲泡咖啡。”

Woman Promotes Cross-Strait Relations

By Xu Zhongyou

It is hard to tell who Zhou Quan is if one only knows the woman once studied an ENBA postgraduate course at Beijing-based Tsinghua University.

Her two other titles reveal more about the adventures of the outstanding Taiwan woman. She was the president of the Taiwan-based Truth Television and the host of Zhou Quan Coffee Break, a talk show featured by the television station. Now she is president of an education foundation in Taiwan.

A reporter

Zhou Quan has her family roots in the mainland. Her father Zhou Wenqin crossed the Taiwan Straits from Xiamen of Fujian Province to the island in the first half of 1949 to visit his second elder sister. The sibling visit was not motivated by any political reason. When the traffic across the straits was cut off, Zhou Wenqin was unable to come back to his hometown Jiangshan in southern Zhejiang Province. After staying with the sister for a while, a friend recommended him to a job at the National Cheng Kung University based in Tainan. He worked hard and got promoted. His marriage with a local girl begot Zhou Quan in 1956.

After working briefly at two media companies, Zhou Quan began in 1979 to work at the Taiwan China Television, thus starting her career as a journalist. She worked there for nine years.

Her nine-year career at the television began with a big bang.

On her way to do her first assignment one day, Zhou passed a downtown square just in time to see many street artists stampeding into nearby small lanes, carrying their equipment. She soon found out why. A few police officers appeared and patrolled the square. Zhou was infuriated by the prohibition. If New York and Tokyo allowed street artists to work in downtown squares, she reasoned, why should the Taipei authorities ban artists from making a living there? So the novice journalist interviewed dozens of street artists, residents and government officials on the subject. The television station made a program on the subject and then followed it up with more than 30 more reports. The coverage grabbed the attention of the general public. In the end, the city authorities called off the ban.

Another night, she and her colleagues were going to do an on-the-spot report at an illegal slaughterhouse. As soon as they stepped off their van, they saw a group of unlicensed butchers come forward, their faces distorted by ferocious hate, their cloths smeared with blood, and flashy butcher’s knives in their hands. Several of Zhou’s male colleagues flinched and stepped back, but Zhou walked up to the butchers. Though the butchers cursed, threatened and even pushed her, Zhou Quan continued her work. When the coverage was done and Zhou and her colleagues were ready to leave, they found the tires of the van had been slashed. A butcher roared viciously that it was only a small lesson and that they would not hesitate to cut off an arm or a leg if the journalists dared to come back. Despite the malicious threat, Zhou Quan wrapped up the report back at the station and it was soon aired. Her colleagues later joked that Zhou Quan’s courage was sharper than the knives.

Zhou was so adamant in exposing social evils that her reports frequently antagonized high-ranking officials of the authorities. She even created an epitaph to outface danger: “I am prepared to go to hell for the cause of justice, for heaven would never admit me if I can’t tell right from wrong.”

President at Pursuit of Truth

Over the nine years at the Taiwan China Television, Zhou Quan worked as a reporter, host and news presenter before engaging herself more actively in politics. After quitting the China TV, she set up Truth Television, the island’s first cable television that successfully broke away from the news blockage imposed by the island authorities. It was the first global Chinese news television with more than 10 million viewers in Asia, America and Europe.

To promote the audience rating, Zhou Quan invited Li Ao, a writer who had explored truth and blasted social evils in newspaper columns, to host a one-man talk show. Many people thought Li Ao would be trouble, but Zhou believed that Li had the courage, morality and wisdom to do the job well. The talk show enabled the scholar to shift his verbal attack on social evils from newspaper columns to television. Li did not just condemn those responsible for bad things. He went out of his way to talk about the good people and their good deeds. The audience rating soared shortly after Li’s 10 pm program went on air. For a period of five years, the bold writer covered various social topics in more than 1,000 shows.

After assuming the presidency of the television, Zhou Quan assigned much more time for reports on the mainland. Programs on travel, business, history and cultural exchanges between the island and the mainland were screened. Truth Television also screened documentaries produced by the mainland artists and journalists. Zhou Quan even headed a team to cover the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. She also hosted her own show to talk about things on both sides of the Straits.

In June, 2003, the controlling stockholder of Truth Television shut down the television operations due to the strong pressure from the Taiwan authorities. It is believed that one of the shutdown reasons was that the programs looked offensive in the eyes of the authorities.

Since the shutdown of the Truth Television, Zhou Quan has made continuous efforts to promote exchanges across the Taiwan Straits.

In 2003, Zhou Quan ran into an advertisement of the EMBA course at the business college of the Beijing-based Tsinghua University on a flight. She enrolled herself into the course. She liked what she saw at the university: talented people and a vast variety of resources. She enriched her life through new friends she made and new things she learned there.

Zhou Quan never hesitates to encourage her friends, relatives, and colleagues in Taiwan to visit the mainland and gain first-hand experiences. She believes that people from Taiwan can find development opportunities on the mainland and work together with the compatriots on the mainland to create a bright future for China in the 21st century.

While studying at Tsinghua University, Zhou Quan set up an association of Tsinghua Taiwan Alumni and she was elected president of the association. In March 2005, she organized EMBA students in Taiwan-based Tsinghua University for a field study tour on the mainland. Three months later, she organized teachers and EMBA students from Beijing-based Tsinghua University to attend the First Forum of Tsinghua Universities across the Straits. In June, 2006, Zhou also organized 80 university students from Taiwan to visit Fudan University in Shanghai. The students also toured neighboring Suzhou and Kunshan. In August of the same year, she organized principals of high schools in Taiwan to visit the mainland.