[quote=“monkey”][quote=“Typo Times”]A furniture planner at a trendy-looking furniture shop on Ren’ai Road, Stanley Lo (???), said the main his group designed and manufactured integrated sets of furniture.
[/quote]
Now, there are at least half a dozen people working in the features section at the Taipei Times and they only publish a couple of locally written articles a week. If this is not the result of collective incompetence, then what is it? How much manpower do you need to publish 500 words and get them in the right order?[/quote]
Hmm. One more thing. According to monkey’s previous posts from a long time ago, he/she was an editor at TT for a time, and a rather disaffected one at that. But whereas monkey’s posts seemed to be largely attacks on incompetent TT management then, now they are targeting people that would have been his/her colleagues. All this because the word “in” was left out between the words “said” and “the”.
I mean, where the hell is all this bile coming from? Does monkey and the rest of the hate squad apply the standards of excellence to themselves that they demand of all others? I’d like to see if that is in fact how things play out. For Chrissakes, people, what happened to the bigger picture? It’s been asked before, but why are these minor newspapers such magnets for loathing?
Well, first of all, if monkey is American, he probably wouldn’t have seen that adding one word – “in” – would make this a correct sentence in British English. I’ve never heard or read the phrase “in the main” in the US. Now, before you get off on me for this, I’m not claiming that the TT has to follow American English – but if you’re not aware of the phrase “in the main”, your reaction to that sentence will definitely be “WTF?” I know mine was.
Second, I can’t see where saying that a newspaper – a NEWSPAPER, for God’s sake – should be able to spell and print correct copy is spewing bile. Don’t you expect a symphony conductor to be able to read music? An artist to know one color from the other? An engineer to be able to add and subtract?
Generally speaking, if you would mark off for something on a paper turned in by a university-level non-native English speaking student in Taiwan, I think the TT should be held responsible for it as an error. It’s not about “whole language” and encouraging people to write, after all. It’s supposed to be a professional publication.
Don’t you think the position of the Taipei Times is worthy of respect? None of you are arguing that TT is more accurate and less error prone than it is being accused of being. You’re arguing that critics are nitpicking, missing the big picture, or ranting over something unimportant.
The Taipei Times is the #1 English newspaper in this country. Doesn’t that deserve some respect? Personally, I find leaving in ridiculous errors very disrespectful to that position. If TT doesn’t respect its own position enough to do something about that then it deserves everything it is getting here.
If you don’t believe the paper is worthy of such criticism then you must be here out of a desire to personally attack the individuals or the culture of those who making the criticism. Is the problem that you covertly have a stake in the publication, that you are biggoted, or that you are a hypocrite with nothing better to do with his own time?
If you feel that there are more important issues, a bigger picture, how does a focus on the smaller picture take away from the ability to see these issues? Are you arguing that the amount of grammar mistakes, typos, and misprints in a newspaper is not a measure of its professionalism?
Personally, I don’t think such criticism is unmerited.
I only meant in terms of circulation. But after checking my facts I found it was not the #1 paper in terms of circulation.
In fact, TT is the Fox Networks of newspapers here. All the more reason to criticisize it Those of you who were here for the papers’ launch will have to excuse me for getting here after TT came out.
250000 Taipei Times (highest record AFIK in 2002 was 285,130)
300000 China Post
I can’t find figures for Taiwan News but I thought it was around 250,000 as well. I saw an earlier number for China Post that said 250,000 and compared it to the record high I saw and thought TT was #1. But I was wrong. But apparently bost CP and Taiwan News have higher average circulations.
I still remember back in, I think it was 1999 or 2000, when the Taipei Times first came out, how excited everyone was. This was going to be a “real” English newspaper.
Oh well, one good thing about the TT is that they include the Chinese characters for people’s names and organizations and the like beside the Romanization. That’s very valuable in a place where Romanization schemes come and go faster than Brad Pitt’s girlfriends.
[quote=“ironlady”]I still remember back in, I think it was 1999 or 2000, when the Taipei Times first came out, how excited everyone was. This was going to be a “real” English newspaper.
[/quote]
The thing is that every old-timer here should have known better. I can’t believe how many people actually thought that this was it, this is the real thing that is going to last. It is like those apartment buildings with gyms and spas and all the works that you see advertised, but then a few months after they are built, they close the gym, drain the pool…
[quote=“puiwaihin”]250000 Taipei Times (highest record AFIK in 2002 was 285,130)
300000 China Post
I can’t find figures for Taiwan News but I thought it was around 250,000 as well. I saw an earlier number for China Post that said 250,000 and compared it to the record high I saw and thought TT was #1. But I was wrong. But apparently bost CP and Taiwan News have higher average circulations.[/quote]
[quote=“Flicka”][quote=“puiwaihin”]250000 Taipei Times (highest record AFIK in 2002 was 285,130)
300000 China Post
I can’t find figures for Taiwan News but I thought it was around 250,000 as well. I saw an earlier number for China Post that said 250,000 and compared it to the record high I saw and thought TT was #1. But I was wrong. But apparently bost CP and Taiwan News have higher average circulations.[/quote]
How on earth did you get those figures?[/quote]
They’re bullshit. The circulations are self-reported and are based not on circulation but on how many are shipped each day, not on how many are actually sold.
So if they ship, say 25,000 per day but 23,000 are returned unsold, they claim their circulation is 25,000 when in actual fact it’s just 2,000.
I suppose it makes them feel good or something.
They claim a readership of 280,000 on their website, but won a design prize for newspapers with a readership of less than 50,000. Someone is lying somewhere.
[quote=“sandman”][quote=“Flicka”][quote=“puiwaihin”]250000 Taipei Times (highest record AFIK in 2002 was 285,130)
300000 China Post
I can’t find figures for Taiwan News but I thought it was around 250,000 as well. I saw an earlier number for China Post that said 250,000 and compared it to the record high I saw and thought TT was #1. But I was wrong. But apparently bost CP and Taiwan News have higher average circulations.[/quote]
How on earth did you get those figures?[/quote]
They’re bullshit. The circulations are self-reported and are based not on circulation but on how many are shipped each day, not on how many are actually sold.
So if they ship, say 25,000 per day but 23,000 are returned unsold, they claim their circulation is 25,000 when in actual fact it’s just 2,000.
I suppose it makes them feel good or something.[/quote]
[quote=“LagerLout”][quote=“sandman”][quote=“Flicka”][quote=“puiwaihin”]250000 Taipei Times (highest record AFIK in 2002 was 285,130)
300000 China Post
I can’t find figures for Taiwan News but I thought it was around 250,000 as well. I saw an earlier number for China Post that said 250,000 and compared it to the record high I saw and thought TT was #1. But I was wrong. But apparently bost CP and Taiwan News have higher average circulations.[/quote]
How on earth did you get those figures?[/quote]
They’re bullshit. The circulations are self-reported and are based not on circulation but on how many are shipped each day, not on how many are actually sold.
So if they ship, say 25,000 per day but 23,000 are returned unsold, they claim their circulation is 25,000 when in actual fact it’s just 2,000.
I suppose it makes them feel good or something.[/quote]
Inflated circulation figures increase advertising revenue?[/quote]
Of course that must be it. I’m hung over. Brain functioning more poorly than usual.
Speaking of editing. Where’s the original post on this thread? The now initial post on this thread doesn’t make sense but is slightly less ambiguous than this thread’s headline.
Those of you who were here for the papers’ launch will have to excuse me for getting here after TT came out.
.