Don’t even get me STARTED on fact-checking…
Although last week I spotted a Reuters caption that said “Maori pulls a face…” which really should have been “Maori performs a traditional funeral haka…” Someone at Reuters should have their legs slapped for that one, although I suppose the original was a “fact” :?
HakkaSonic: I heard that about the Post too - it just shows what one editor with experience can do compared with ten “hacks on a career change”… 
The CP having no more typos than the TT? Hoooooooooooooooooooooohahahahahahaha!
The TT has its bad days and is sloppier than it used to be. But it still has a long way to slide before its copyediting drops to the level of the frightfully amateurish CP. This may not be the fault of the CP’s copy editors; but there is still a distinct difference between the copyediting in the two papers.
Yes, it’s the difference between having to copyedit ONE page a night and ALL 16. 
Yes, it’s the difference between having to copyedit ONE page a night and ALL 16. [/quote]
It would be interesting to find out the typo to copyeditor ratio at Taipei Times and China Post. Based on this thread, my guess it’s 2-3 times higher at the Times…
I blame the newspaper, not its copy editors. Believe me, I know what it’s like to be an overworked, underappreciated copy editor.
Well, I agree to a degree, but the pockets of the China Post, a family-owned business, just aren’t as deep as those of the Taipei Times and Taiwan News, which have large companies backing them up. I guess that’s one reason why the Post, given the difficulty of attacting ads during the past couple of years, had had to cut back on copy editors.
I think we all do, dear, hence the gnashing of teeth!
But whether it’s the “system” or not, I don’t think the general management can be blamed for slack editing on the part of individual copyeditors, or the inability of editors-in-chief to find suitably experienced people. As far as I am aware, copy desks are pretty autonomous on the nitty-gritty of night-to-night copy editing affairs, and you just can’t blame typos on people not even in the building at the time!
And the copyeditors at one newspaper can hardly be construed as being “over-worked”! 
LOVE the idea of an editor-to-typo ratio! Or would that be too cruel? 
[quote=“HakkaSonic”]
Well, I agree to a degree, but the pockets of the China Post, a family-owned business, just aren’t as deep as those of the Taipei Times and Taiwan News, .[/quote]
Yes, the poor China Post family. At least they could afford bringing their entire antique car collection over here when the mainland fell, and they all got US passports. Unlike the other papers, they don’t have to rent office space–they own the building.
[quote=“Flicka”][quote=“HakkaSonic”]
Well, I agree to a degree, but the pockets of the China Post, a family-owned business, just aren’t as deep as those of the Taipei Times and Taiwan News, .[/quote]
Yes, the poor China Post family. At least they could afford bringing their entire antique car collection over here when the mainland fell, and they all got US passports. Unlike the other papers, they don’t have to rent office space–they own the building.[/quote]
I never said they were poor, just that their pockets are not as deep as the other English dailies. And family finances can change over the years, I guess it being 54 of them since the mainland fell.
[quote]
It would be interesting to find out the typo to copyeditor ratio at Taipei Times and China Post. Based on this thread, my guess it’s 2-3 times higher at the Times…[/quote]
It may be because people are reading the Times more? Who knows?
Anecdote: I picked up the News and saw an interesting article about Marcos on the Asia page. One sentence has the phrase, "… to split the Swiss bank funds if should the Philippine judiciary rule in the Philippine government’s favor … " I am not looking for errors, but that is the first thing I read.
If we really want to do settle this, we can go through the three papers and pick out every error in all three papers on a specific day in the past.
What would be even more interesting is if we choose a day in the future! That way everyone would be ready. Wouldn’t that be fun? Would we have three perfect papers in one day, or … would one or two of them choke? Or would they all have errors in different numbers?
That’s a GREAT idea and FUN! Though we DO have to take into consideration the number of people working at each paper, otherwise it’s a no-brainer - it’s the RATIO that’s the clincher, don’t you think?
And which day? One when you’re not working, sweetie?
bitch.
Now time for me to be a royal cunt:
I picked up the News today and gasp didn’t find an error on the first story I read. It was the stand-alone photo on Page 1. Partial nudity. Quaint.
BUT the next thing that caught my eye was the story about Maine. Headline: NP.
Sub: oops… “In this U.S. region, travelers can sit on dock of the bay to watch the tide…”
lovely. very poetic, don’t you think?
“Dock of the bay,” indeed.
bitch.
Now time for me to be a royal cunt:
I picked up the News today and gasp didn’t find an error on the first story I read. It was the stand-alone photo on Page 1. Partial nudity. Quaint.
BUT the next thing that caught my eye was the story about Maine. Headline: NP.
Sub: oops… “In this U.S. region, travelers can sit on dock of the bay to watch the tide…”
lovely. very poetic, don’t you think?
“Dock of the bay,” indeed.[/quote]
You must have been OVERWHELMED with nostalgia… 
There have been lots of opinions going back and forth in another thread about which English language newspaper in Taiwan is the best or is the worst, which has the worst management, etc. Basically, the conclusion is that none is very good.
Nevertheless, given the size of the market, the Taiwan management style, the poorly written local stories, biased editorials, frequent staff turnover …etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum, then given all that, which of the three comes out on top? Which one do you read the most?
TT on-line version.
Tough call. I’m quite serious.
Paul Chen’s doggered waiting for the late breaking story tends to make the China Post a tad more interesting. Then again the Tippex Times does tend to get good stuff off the wire. Their own stuff’s pretty good, ala Dave Momphard and Dave Frasier for example.
Actually I switch between the two. The Taiwan News is totally out of the equation.
HG
Good, you’ve given me another chance to raise my hand for the Taipei Times, which is in a league of its own among Taiwan’s English papers. It’s the only one with a world-class professional at the editorial helm, for a start. And by God, he makes excellent picks on what to take from the wires.
Sorry, Wolfie and Monkey, but while the ratings are suspended you’re powerless to “punish” me for singing the praises of the paper you so love to hate.
I voted for the Typo Times - it’s certainly the best end-product, but it OUGHT to be with the amount of people it has working on it. I believe the copyeditors at the Past and the Schnews are more overworked and thus their products lose quality. But whatever, the TT is a better paper each morning, whatever I might think about how hard-working is each member of staff on an individual basis…
The TT also has the best business section; the TN has the best bilingual section (on Sunday) as well as Calvin & Hobbes; and the son of the CP’s owner is one great hunk of spunk who can take his sharp pencil to my copy any day 
It’s like those TV shows where all the kids have to make a soap-box car and have a race. You get one kid who has to make it on his own from a bunch of scrap he finds while another kid gets his Mommy and Daddy to buy him nice materials and build the car for him. Guess which kid would represent the China Post and which the Taipei Times? And of course, the second car is better, but you still want to tell that kid to get a life and stop whining and to wear looser underwear and… well, a whole bunch of other stuff. Sorry… kind of grouchy as there was no coffee at the office today.
The Taipei Times is the prettiest, no doubt about it, but a lot of the stuff is very Taipei-related, like that don’t care about the schmucks living in Hsinchu, or the south.