This study examines the ways in which the DaPu incident has affected on mainstream coverages towards eminent domain in Taiwan. We first analyses trend of mainstream newspaper coverage towards eminent domain; then we compare these coverages before and after the Dapu incident; finally, we attempt to explain the changes of news coverage in relation to the Dapu incident, a powerful social movement. Combining corpus-based approach and critical discourse analysis, we investigate the ways in which Taiwan’s four mainstream newspapers report (United Daily News, Liberty Times, China Times, and Apple Daily) eminent domain, from 2008 to 2015. The results show that there are significant changes of mainstream news coverage of eminent domain since the Dapu incident has become a social movement. After the Dapu incident, there are more diverse sources of information, broader range of topic about eminent domain, and different types of framing eminent domain. We argue that the Dapu incident ‘makes’ news; the news media has developing different types of frames towards eminent domain as this public issues evolves. The media is able to provide different interpretations, particularly through different perspectives of land justice and the legitimacy of compulsory acquisition.