Former KMT organ The China Post has announced the end of its print run. Apparently its final edition will be published on May 15, 2017:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan-issues/2017/04/16/495666/After-65.htm
When I arrived in Taiwan, there were (incredibly!) three English-language daily papers: The China Post (with its entertainingly hardcore blue leanings–which have certainly softened lately); the Taipei Times (unabashedly pro-Green, and part of the Liberty Times group); and the Taiwan News (with its refreshingly sharp and non-dogmatically progressive editorials back in the day).
In print form, we’ll be down to the Taipei Times.
Do forumosans care? Is a healthy English-language press necessary in Taiwan? Feel free to share your views.
Guy
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Care that they are not in print? No, you can read them online, just like nearly 99.9% of all newspapers around the world. Some people can even hug trees for the printed paper that is saved (or perhaps the trees should be hugging people).
I sometimes (always?) get more info from Taiwan-based blogs. Only sporadically scan the newspapers’ website headlines to note if any major news is out there, and mostly to read gossip news.
It’s not the end of the world, just the development of the Internet as a source of news and not “printed paper”. We’re living through our own “Gutenberg printing press” revolution with the Internet.
I think it’s sad, but then I also don’t pick up print editions of the news unless I am on an airplane.
When I arrived in Taiwan there were two English-language daily papers: the Taipei Times being a very recent addition.
Is a healthy English-language press necessary in Taiwan?
I think something that reflects the views of many here for the world to see is important. And, having it in print is important in making it something akin to a paper of record. What is the paper of record here today (in Chinese)? 中國時報?
They should fix their digital website before they stop the print format. It has not worked correctly for at least a week
There is gonna be a lot of sad budgies in bird cages tonight. No more China Post to line their cages with. Oh well, there is always Taiwan News. 
Unless you have print issues from a decade ago, The Taiwan News will not help you either.
Guy
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That shows you how long it has been since I read that rag! LOL.
I think it shows us how long it’s been since you actually lived here in Taiwan. 
Guy
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China post.
What was his name, Dr Hung? Some idiot that fella.
They had the column from the Jesuit priest out in Furen university as well. Then they’d have random articles about something in rural America which I thought was charming if irrelevant to life here.
Well I haven’t bought an English paper in a couple of years and I was an avid consumer for many years.
I do think the printed Taipei times did keep me up to date with a lot of stuff along with its arts and entertainment edition (although none of the English papers cover a lot of the gory local news…reading the Chinese papers was an education believe me). They’d have multiple murder suicides that wouldn’t even be mentioned in the English papers.
I don’t really think there’s anything to fully replace those papers if they both go…and that WILL be quite sad.
Same with this forum…it’s never really been replaced in any format for expats…including Facebook.
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I actually interviewed at their offices for some kind of English tutor position there once. I think it was that but I can’t recall what happened as nothing came if it. I also did a test to be a copy editor at the Typo Times and was …gasp…passed up on for an interview!
Come on…there used to be a bunch of ex copy editors on here…surely somebody can give some color?
The hardest of hard-core blue columnists, with forms of reasoning that, well, defied reason.
Daniel Bauer–a long-term resident I’ve never met, but who came across in print as a thoughtful and decent man.
But it was in fact illuminating–not about conditions in the rural US, of course, but of the Cold War mindset of KMT propaganda organs. That tells us something, however indirectly, about life in Taiwan and its circumscribed notions of what lies outside.
Guy
Joe Hung was the name. It’s all coming back to me.
I firmly remember one column where Joe Hung stated that the difference between English and Chinese was basically that Chinese ‘has no grammar.’
I’ve been operating on that premise for almost 20 years. 
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I got to the interview for the Copy Editor job but they passed on me, even though I majored in journalism in the US, had interned at one of the biggest papers in the country and worked in the field since finishing university.
Good thing though, their monthly salary was something like $42,000 and of course you have to work 3 pm to midnight, maybe longer if the Pope kicks the bucket. Oh, and they’re pro-KMT/China. Can’t believe I missed out on that one!
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I mentioned this as an aside elsewhere, but I thought I’d post it in this thread too.
Michael Turton has posted an account saying that based on his sources the newly “enhanced” online-only version of The China Post has apparently fired all but one of its staff:
The space for English-language reporting in Taiwan continues to shrink.
Guy
As I predicted it will soon shut down completely.