Let’s play a game of “spot all the problems you can.”
The article is on the money. The Liens are firmly pro-unification, incredibly corrupt, have consistently kissed the CCP’s ass over the last decade, and would gladly sell Taiwan out to China. The country dodged a bullet twice in rejecting Lien Chan and Taipei should do the same with his completely inept son.
Of course, the actual quality of the article is terrible and it’s just repeating the a political party’s talking points, but that’s true of all media in Taiwan.
And elsewhere. J-school is hardly a real education.
What’s wrong with the Taipei Times is that they’ve married themselves to one political party - the DPP. Same could be said for the China Post and their romantic relationship with the KMT.
A real newspaper (as opposed to a propaganda sheet) is one that reports the news without bias. Expressing political opinion is of course a legitimate journalistic activity, but that should be reserved for the editorial page and should never be mixed up with the rest of the news. Writers of opinion pieces should sign their name, and somewhere in the fine print it should state that this is the writer’s opinion and is does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper (in fact, “newspapers” should not have opinions, individuals should have opinions). I hardly think that everyone working for the Taipei Times believes all the propaganda that the newspaper regurgitates, despite the best effort of management to make sure that everyone employed there is ideologically “green” and speaks with one mind.
Taiwanese news media is hardly alone in being guilty of mixing up news with opinion. One only has to look at Fox News to see how the media can become a well-oiled propaganda machine, devoid of any real “news” content.
[quote=“Dog’s_Breakfast”]
A real newspaper (as opposed to a propaganda sheet) is one that reports the news without bias. [/quote]
Such a thing exists nowhere, as far as I know.
was just about to say the same thing
While I agree that both the Taipei Times and the China Post have clear political leanings, it seems to me that the Taipei Times wears it much more on their sleeve. I often see editorials in the Post that are critical of the KMT and Ma. Just this past week there have been at least a couple of CP editorials talking of Ma’s “incompetence” as a president and leader.
I have both websites bookmarked and read both to try and get some perspective, but SO MANY TT articles read like the one Hok linked to above. They are basically entire statements by DPP/TSU politicians disguised as an article (like this one: taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 03598439/1 ← Nearly every paragraph in that article ends with “She said” or “Tsai said”).
When I first moved to Taiwan, I followed Taiwan politics and news very closely. I would pick up the Taipei Times, China Post or Taiwan News at 7-11 or while I was sitting at McDonalds. At that point, I had no idea about most things here and was just forming opinions. It quickly became evident that the TT was the most biased of the papers so I avoided reading it when other options were available. When the China Post and Taiwan News stopped circulation, I basically stopped following politics. I just can’t swallow the Taipei Times incessant jamming of their viewpoints down my throat. Their articles, their editorials, the letters they publish are all so slanted.
The Taipei Times and the China Post are both terrible newspapers and are not worth the wear on my eyes. However, the Taipei Times is certainly more upfront about it’s ideals and political leanings, while the China Post is more subtle and underhanded. I guess one could draw a kind of inference from that also.
I ignore both of them equally. Occasionally though I will pick one up, and then within 3 minutes be looking for somewhere to leave it. They should’t sell crap newspapers in a city with no garbage cans.
Michael Cole, the former deputy editor at the TT, lays it all bare in his memoir Officially Unofficial.
amazon.com/Officially-Unoffi … 1496120000
Or Kindle:
amazon.com/Officially-Unoffi … unofficial
Bought a digital copy but haven’t yet had a chance to read it. Looking forward to getting some quality time in with Cole during my honeymoon. Wait a minute… 
Wait! Stop the presses! The Taipei Times is a politically biased rag…uh, like every other newspaper in Taiwan and 99.9% of newspapers all over the world. Well, except for papers like the Apple Daily, which aspire to a much higher goal: being a trashy tabloid.
its a redundant bird shit catcher read by English teachers who can’t afford a smart phone for their commutes or bored staffers in their common room.
i haven’t picked up a Post or a Times, or that even more Godawfuller one in the last five years and I bet if I did they would be THE EXACT SAME, just like This Month in Taiwan (the pinnacle of Groundhog Day style publications).
no one gives a fuck, no one cares, the Mainlanders are probably less corrupt than the locals pandering to them.
its all a giant piss take.
Meanwhile, CNA tends to do the same thing in the other direction. How many “business groups support services pact” articles do we need in one month, I wonder?
(This is my attempt to look like I’m objective and not just picking on one paper in particular.)
Grave dig to say: yes the Taipei Times continues to suck.
Look at this headline, and read the article. Ko is being attacked by Miao Po-ya and by an official from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, neither of which remotely resemble “pan-Blue politicians.” WTF! Get your act together, Taipei Times!
Guy
More intolerable stupidity in today’s Taipei Times, which apparently cannot distinguish between Taichung and Taitung. 
Guy
Reviving this thread as the sad and avoidable slide of the Taipei Times into irrelevance continues.
The context: the explosion of surprisingly good Indian food in Taipei lately. There are now almost too many good restaurants to name! The best of them are truly excellent.
Enter the Taipei Times. What a chance to educate their readers, and write up some reviews about the variety of foods from the Indian subcontinent available in Taiwan’s capital. I can envision this feature story, with photos and follow up interviews with the many enterprising Indians and Pakistanis doing good here in Taiwan.
Here’s what we get instead, in today’s paper:
Yes that’s right, a discussion of biryani in Pakistan, especially Karachi, taken from AFP off the newswire. Now let me be clear. I love biryani. I am almost obsessed with biryani, and have eaten countless numbers of them. I would love more stories about biryani. But here we are in Taiwan, with a growing Indian and a smaller but distinguished Pakistani community. Some of these folks are doing great work! Why not write about them, tell their stories, showing us how Taiwan is changing?
The Taipei Times has become perhaps the last place I would look for such insight. I do not write this with joy, but this newspaper—despite the stellar work of forumosans such as @StevenCrook and other columnists such as Han Cheung—has for the most part become a lazy, hollow shell of itself.
Taipei Times, heal thyself!
Guy
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