Hi,
What is the best news sources in Taiwan? Can I get a recommendation for a website or a newspaper?
I heard Chinatimes is really bad. Please tell me something other than Chinatimes. English is super, but Mandarin is okay also. Thanks.
I get most of my news from Forumosa, as sad as that is.
I work for them, I read them all, I weep.
This one has an email update service thats not too bad:
etaiwannews.com/etn/index_en.php
But frankly, its a pitiful state for getting news from a local source here. You might set up feed sources from various sites as you notice a ‘Taiwan’ story. Then you’ll develop whats good and whats sucky.
The ‘filtering’ that news goes thru here is mostly hilarious. Slanted, biased and twisted.
Forumosa has the truth, the whole truth, a whole lot off half-truths, and a dollop of complete bullshit to add flavour. That still makes us better than Fox. 
The news is so biased here that you need to read at least two opposing sources to get an approximation of what’s going on. Even then it requires a bit of guess work.
[quote=“ironlady”]I get most of my news from Forumosa, as sad as that is.[/quote]Honestly I do also on some topics. First hand reports, eyewitless stuff…the diversity of posters and varied locations around the island is often times very handy.[quote=“Maoman”]Forumosa has the truth, the whole truth, a whole lot off half-truths, and a dollop of complete bullshit to add flavour.[/quote]ChoDoFu is eaten by choice by many people.[quote=“Maoman”] That still makes us better than Fox. 
[/quote]Yeah…right. … 
from tommy 
And things ain’t gettin’ any better…
[quote]Preliminary review of an amendment limiting the print media from publishing graphic reports on sex, violence, criminal and obscene acts, suicides and drug use was completed by the Legislature June 2.
Under Article 37 of the Children and Youth Welfare Act proposed by the Ministry of the Interior, violators are subject to fines of between NT$100,000 (US$3,095) and NT$500,000 and can have their names made public.
The MOI put forward the amendment following heavy criticism from social welfare groups that the media’s longstanding practice of sensational reporting of crimes involving sex, violence or obscene acts was having a negative effect on the mental health of children and teenagers.
The proposed revision stipulates that print media cannot describe in excessive detail through pictures or words, sexual acts, lewd behavior, violent acts, substance abuse or suicide cases.
The preliminary review of the revision was passed without a single dissenting voice among legislators.
However, afterward, lawmakers realized that if journalists are prohibited even from writing about “tools” used in criminal cases, then “news organizations might not know how to write the story.”
…
[/quote]
taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=105559&ctNode=445
Athula
For news in Taiwan, I generally rely on interpreting the number and layout of feline fecal matter and urine clumps in the litterbox every morning and evening.
Ooh, I hear that’s 3 and a half times more accurate than the Taipei Times! 
I think I already know the answer to this question, but just in case…
Is there any Chinese-language equivalent to western-style public radio? Like the BBC/ NPR/ CBC/ ABC (the Australian one)? You know, something that I’d actually WANT to listen to in Chinese, something that’s moderately sober and level-headed and international and at least attempts to give multiple views of an issue?
Not that my Chinese is anywhere near a level that could handle it, but I think one of my problems with learning Chinese is that every time I watch Chinese-language TV or hear excited people on the radio, I realize I have no interest in finding out what they’re talking about. It’d be nice to have something to aspire to.
What I currently do for Taiwan news: I gave up reading the local [English] newspapers long ago; as cfimages said above, they’re just so biased and predictable, and the international news is what I usually saw two days previously online. In my RSS feed I do have any Yahoo, BBC, or Google stories about Taiwan, but unfortunately that just leads to millions of articles about stock movements and business deals. It’s too bad; I’m ashamed of how little I know about Taiwan news, but the English-language options that I’ve seen are all unpalatable.
I do also have an RSS feed for the China Post and Taipei Times. The Taipei Times is hopeless - they only give the headline, and no intro to the story whatsoever, so I very seldom click through to a story. The China Post at least has enough information to let me know whether or not to read on.
You can also learn a lot from a few of the English language Taiwan-based blogs. I go through phases of reading those, but these days I try to avoid them because, well, I wind up hating Taiwan and feeling deeply depressed about the future, and I don’t like feeling that way.
民視 has an international news segment on Sunday night which I make a point of trying to catch. 公視 has intelligent if extremely boring political talk shows on from time to time. I’ve bookmarked the international news section on Yahoo Taiwan. The design of the websites of all the major newspapers here are a complete mess and non-conducive to browsing through articles, so I often find it easier to read the actual paper at a nearby breakfast shop (I either go to one shop with the China Times or another with the Apple Daily; the Liberty Times makes me gag that early in the morning.)
Thanks for all the replies. For international news, I rather just read English. I think BBC is the most fair and balanced. I think BBC beats CNN or anything from the States.
Local news is what I am most interested in. So far I only stick with arts / sports / entertainment section. Even those can be quite inaccurate. My mandarin is not good enough to understand what is happening, but intuitively I felt that the news media is just trying to either sensationalize events for better viewership or to brainwash people. But I guess you can say the same about any news media in the world.
There’s Formosa News on FTV if you want local news in English. It’s a 20-minute program that covers most of the major local news stories of the day, and it’s not designed to be an English-teaching program like some of the other televized “news” shows out there.
I disagree. It covers mostly political events with no analysis, no crime, no culture, no sports unless it’s about Wang Jianmin, no investigative reporting, no entertainment news, etc. If there is a Hakka salt pork festival in Miaoli, you can be sure they’ll cover that,though. 
for the OP, just to list it:
[b]Taiwan Today…its a pretty sappy & lightweight site. But it does have the occasional interesting story.
Painfully under-reported and lacking in any actual technical value…but its about “Taiwan.”
The “opinions” & “commentary” pieces are sometimes a real hoot. (American expression for something worth shits…as in “are you shitting me?” & giggles…as in laughable)
“Taiwan Today” is an aggregator site, so there’s no point criticizing the reporting. It takes news already in English, and news that the GIO folks believe is interesting and have translated into English [by me and others], and consolidates it.
Best news source in Taiwan? Associated Press.
As much as I love lolcats, they have no place during a news segment unless it involves serious breach to national security.