How to run a newspaper into the ground in 3 years

I got told just this afternoon that I had been “blacklisted” by the managers of the Times. It seems I won’t be writing anything for them anymore.

Why you ask? Because they didn’t seem to like my letter that I posted at the start of this string. Ummm, maybe they are not 100% committed to free expression of ideas. Gee, I am shocked, all I ever hear the Times talk about was “freedom of the press”, “free flow of ideas”, yack, yack, yack.

Well, it comes as no surprise. I knew that by posting here my “real” thoughts, that I was running the risk of getting blacklisted off the paper. But my thinking was that the Time’s “good will” was in fact not worth much.

Anyway it has a bright side. It shows that people in positions of authority do follow the Oriented forums and I will have the peace of mind of knowing I didn’t self censure myself. After all,

you gotta go for the gusto.

(that would make a great beer ad)

take care,
Brian the Blacklisted

Aye, and there’s a long story behind that. The Times’ management are so upset with TT employees telling the truth about the newspaper on forumosa that they are on a witch-hunt in the office trying to figure out who all the posters are.
One could only assume that if they have the ability to read these forums, they have the ability to respond too. But they don’t. I wonder why? :smiling_imp:

Now that the business tycoon owner of the Taipei Times and the Liberty Times is being fed translations of the postings, surely he will see at least traces of the light.
If I were the president or chief editor I would be thinking about sacking the palace and making a good ol’ fashioned run for it.
When the big boss finds out the shit these two have been pulling over the past three years (and remember, the chief editor is PAID a king’s ransom to keep the big man informed of how the wind is blowing at the Taipei Times) the big man will most likely want to have both their heads on a platter.
Of course, one would hope that good things would come of this discovery by upper management, but more likely, and lamentably, fingers will be pointed at the wrong people and the Chinese will cover each other’s asses, as usual.

I have to agree with Wolf. If the owner of the Taipei Times is fed with even half the lies that the company’s workers are, then Mr. Lin surely has no clue as to what’s going on there.
I think one of the most telling signs is that Mr. Lin hasn’t been on a walkabout tour of the Taipei Times offices for almost 2 years (that i can remember anyway). Why would that be? It’s his company. What would the TT management want to hide i wonder?
I’m sure he doesn’t know that all the key staff have either quit out of disgust or been fired by the top TT managers in a vain attempt to avoid the real truth about management incompetence being broadcast.

Hey Wolf and monkey, your frequent personal slurs against the president and editor-in-chief are starting to work against you. Listen to hexuan. The TT is not the evil empire. It is run like any other Taiwanese company with a normal Taiwanese management style. Do you actually think that they would change their style and risk their careers so that your ambitions could be satisfied. Geez…

Kennedy, you were dropped because you weren’t their friend (you’ve been in taiwan how long and haven’t learned the art of guanxi?).

Wolf and monkey, you both were fired, not because you were incompetent copy-editors (from what I’ve heard you were no worse or better than the rest on the copydesk), but because your real-life personas are no different from your online ones.

==========================================
Yes! My name is _____, and I think far too much about Tawanese English language newspapers…aaahh, i will sleep better tonight. )

TEDA_member02

Since you seem to be, if not the voice of the TT management then at least connected with it, it may be more fruitful to respond to you.

While Wolf and Monkey may have their own personal animosities, that doesn’t make them wrong about other things at the paper.

One thing that has been mentioned is the retrofit translations on the opinion page. The editors need to decide what their priority is. Is this aimed at actual foreigners here and abroad? If so they should be more selective about what they translate. Frankly most of the translated pieces are more appropriate to the needs and expectations of the Taiwanese audience for whome they were originally written. And some of them are simply bad, lacking any sort of argument or supporting detail. One wonders why they were written in the first place let alone translated. I think many in the foreign community would like to see their own voice reflected on the opinion page by people such as Kennedy.

If they want to teach Taiwanese English they should open a buxiban, if they want to fill space cheaply they should just go all the way and put in an ad.

And there you have it. Save up for a real newspaper and don’t waste your time thinking that a paper managed in typical Taiwan style would aspire to anything other than mediocrity. That was your point, wasn’t it, TEDA? Well said.

The truth will set you free.

why don’t all of you ask yourselves if you’re, in any way, qualified to comment on newspaper work? Any one here actually work at a western paper before coming to taiwan?

Concernedcitizen, what’s your point? Are you saying that you can’t learn how to be a newspaper editor or reporter unless you work at a Western paper? Any other professions that are exclusive to Western countries in your view? Law, perhaps, or medicine?

I wonder which of the Taipei Times’ management lackeys wrote that for them?

quote:
Originally posted by TEDA_member02: Hey Wolf and monkey, your frequent personal slurs against the president and editor-in-chief are starting to work against you.
I haven't STARTED getting personal yet. If i have stated that someone in the TT is regularly drunk on office time, is threatening and abusive, promotes racist policies, gives his best friends well-paid jobs while ignoring suitable candidates, and is a pathological liar to boot -- i'm sorry if these were miscontrued as "personal attacks." I was intending to highlight their professional incompetence. And why are such "personal attacks" starting to work against myself and Wolf? I have been told these forums (and these newspaper threads) are a valuable source of information for the remaining TT workers. They aren't allowed to talk freely in the office and to exchange ideas, under threat of being fired. The fact that that many former and current TT workers contribute here is ample proof that suppression of speech and ideas will simply force it underground ... but the added bonus of online forums is that the whole world can see.
quote:
Originally posted by TEDA_member02: Wolf and monkey, you both were fired, not because you were incompetent copy-editors (from what I've heard you were no worse or better than the rest on the copydesk), but because your real-life personas are no different from your online ones. Both of you would attack fellow editors with the same venom that you've showered your former bosses.
You're obviously grasping at straws here! My apologies if telling the truth makes the TT management loses face in the office or in these forums. The truth is the truth and needs to be told, along with supporting facts. As media people, we should all recognize the prime directive.
quote:
Originally posted by TEDA_member02: (monkey, when is that little light going to go off in your head illuminating HOW the TT management knows about these boards and who is who?
I can give you some good fishing lessons if you are willing to pay ...
quote:
Originally posted by TEDA_member02: [QB]Hey moderators, can I give out the real names of these guys or is that only only allowed for TT managers? [QB]
Just don't post any pictures here of me with that sheep OK? [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

Originally posted by TEDA_member02

quote[quote](monkey, when is that little light going to go off in your head illuminating HOW the TT management knows about these boards and who is who? )[/quote]

quote[quote]Hey moderators, can I give out the real names of these guys or is that only only allowed for TT managers?[/quote]

Sorry I had to post that again, thought it was pretty funny. Ah the the tangled web of deceit we weave.

I just want to throw in my 2 cents worth here as an ex-TT employee. First of all, I left on my accord, so this isn’t sour grapes, but you’ll see later why I chose to leave and why so many others have done so.

Let me just give you one example of how messed up things are at the TT. On Dec. 1 Taiwan had elections for the legislature. It was a big news night. Our 11:30 deadline was pushed back by one hour to 12:30am. But we missed that deadline by nearly two hours. This as a result delayed the production of the Liberty Times, and that in turn meant the Liberty Times hit the newsstands late after the competition. On a big news day, no less!! Naturally, the owner of the Liberty Times was upset and wanted to know why the TT was two hours late.

So what was the reason? For starters, the news editor, who wrote a page one story on the election results, didn’t turn her copy in until 12:30, which was the deadline for the whole entire paper! If you’re not familiar with news production, it takes at least an hour after the final story is turned before the copy editors and layout editors can finish their jobs. So that front page news report should have been in by 11:30 at the latest, but it didn’t come in until 12:30am.

Because the news editor was tardy, other reporters took that as sign that they could file their stories late, too. As a result, the last story wasn’t filed until 1:30am and the paper didn’t get done until much later.

So why didn’t anyone tell the news editor and the reporters to get their stories in on time? Well, the news editor is the one that is supposed to tell the reporters to file their stories on time. But she herself was late with her own story and wouldn’t tell the reporters to meet their deadline. And why didn’t anyone tell the news editor to file her story on time? Because the only person who has the authority to so is the editor in chief – the guy who hired her. I do recall some copy editors saying they needed her story, but they were ignored.

So, the paper was late on election night, delaying the Liberty Times.

But what really made me mad, and what disgusts me about the TT, was the explantion given to the owner of the Liberty Times as to why the TT was late.

The editor in chief of the paper was called upstairs. He blamed those foreigners on the copydesk!!!

When I found out about this, I was very upset and saddened. I had become used to the unfair tactics and decisions that have no logical explanation. But telling lies just to protect yourself at the expense of the people that work very hard to put out the paper each day is just plain WRONG!!!

It’s untolerable.

So you can see, what others have said on these threads is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are two things I realized about the TT.

  1. When something goes right, the management will take credit, regardless (as most of is the case) of the fact that they had nothing to do with it.
  2. When something goes wrong, the foreigners will get blamed.

I can go on with other examples of how poorly the paper is run, but why bother? You should get the picture by now. I just wanted to point out that the management of the TT are the ones holding all the cards, that they don’t have to play fair and they don’t. The people that work there have to put up with until they either leave or get fired.

It’s just a mean, ugly place to work at.

I can personally vouch for the truth of Bendan’s account of that incident. But that is just a single instance of the incompetence that wracks the Taipei Times.
It’s always the same. The management screw up, and the only way they can save face is to lie and blame other people. They see foreigners as the easiest to blame, because they know that we do not have the same rights under the law that Taiwanese workers do.
It’s sad that the owner of the newspaper doesn’t get reports on the performance of his managers. If he were to know even a fraction of the truth, there might be some corrective action. After all, the president and editor in chief and his entourage of butt-kissing sycophants don’t make money for the newspaper. They don’t contribute to the product in any way. They are, in fact, expensive and unnecessary overheads.
As i’ve said in previous posts, firing the people that make the product won’t help save money. Firing the freeloaders, and the freeloaders who hire their freeloading friends, on the other hand, makes perfect sense.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I hereby offer a bilingual version of Bendan’s post because I don’t think it’s fair to lash out at the TT’s management in a language they can’t read (or only half-understand). If that is the reason why the management has not responded, now they have a good chance to do so because a post has been translated into Chinese. (Maybe they will want to publish it in the TT’s new bilingual page on June 16).

Please do come forward, Mr Chu. This is your chance to clarify your stance regarding these accusations. Meanwhile, I also call on whoever is capable of English-to-Chinese translation to translate some of the meaty, factually based, soundly reasoned posts (not any of those ranting posts, please)and post them here. This will further force the management to pay heed. Especially, please translate some posts about the other manager, professor Lee, that good presbyterian messenger of the lord.

Now,ladies and gentlemen, what are you waiting for? Spread the disease!! Send the translation to the Liberty Times! Mr Lin! The other newspapers! (Ah, the management’s Ultimate Nightmare because that’s where all they came from and where all their buddies are.)The GIO! The Presidential Office! Come on, smoke’em out!

Translation of Bendan’s post

I just want to throw in my 2 cents worth here as an ex-TT employee. First of all, I left on my accord, so this isn’t sour grapes, but you’ll see later why I chose to leave and why so many others have done so.

Mr. Kennedy has an “attitude problem” which will not get him very far in Taiwan or China. The successful demise of Amnesty Int’l has left a terrible vacuum which I am attempting to fill with a Taiwanese-oriented approach to the issue. His western activist approach to things in the East suggests that he has no true idea about the generally inherent and most paradoxical nature of things “Chinese”. Of course, this is not meant to be a scathing personal attack but a wake up call to these greener westerners in Taiwan that some just do not understand the environment in which they are attempting to cultivate. You’re more marginalized than when you started and it’ll get worse without a new approach. There is a time to be an Ugly American, and there are those times to be Ugly Chinese.

If a Taiwanese company wants “friends” who have a fair level of English, it should hire Taiwanese who have lived abroad. If it hires foreigner professionals, it would seem advantageous to take advantage of their expertise.

Seems like the same situation I see all over the place: something doesn’t work, the foreigner is the only one who mentions it or (gasp!) proposes a solution, and after Foreigner has spoken out, the Taiwanese bystanders generally nod and say, “Yeah, that’s true.” They seem to agree about what the problems are and even many times as to what some solutions might be, but heaven forfend they actually SAY anything…and no, I don’t work for the media, I’m actually talking about the MRT feeder buses!

Terry

Isn’t there an underlying assumption here that management and/or the owners actually care how crap their newspaper is ? Isn’t this a bit like being shocked and indignant that bushiban owners don’t really care about the quality of the students’ education ?

Taiwanstatus
Maybe Mr. Kennedy does have an attitude problem, but I don’t know him personally so I can’t comment on that. May I make a suggestion? Rather than toss around terms like “Ugly American”, try and look at what Mr. Kennedy and others like him are trying to do. I would be inclined to say that the Chinese/ Taiwanese can be very childish when it comes to saving face. How dare a foreigner suggest or even tell a Chinese what might be best. I think it’s about time Chinese/ Taiwanese and Japanese stop with the “this how we do things here” cr#p and broaden thier horizons. Maybe we foreiners aren’t needed here, but then again maybe we have something to contribute also. Otherwise, why would we be hired in the first place? To be the token white face to show the outside world how international Taiwan is? I’ve read the book “The Ugly American” and I do not think Brian Kennedy even remotely fits that description. He just calls 'em like he sees 'em.
And one more thing Taiwanstatus, why on earth would there be a time to be an “ugly American” and an “ugly Chinese?”
Oh, but I guess I walked into it didn’t I? Now I am an ugly Canadian. Are there any ugly Australians or ugly French out there?

Calling it like one sees it is very admirable, if one is not involving Chinese. I am not sitting in moral judgement of anyone here as I known for my self-styled methods of annoying the Chinese, too. The cross-cultural misbehaviors of brutal honesty is “ugly” to their loss of face, and thus western honesty only further worsens their own individual situation in the end…like alienating themselves completely from the group. It is the uglier side of Chinese behavior which drives me and everyone on this website crazy. Makes you want to truly strangle the living day lights out of them, doesn’t it?

Sometimes one must conform and then sometimes one must be defiant like an Ugly American or be the generic “Ugly Americans” from the West. For us, just being Chinese is an ugly experience to play the face-saving and guanxi game all the time. I mean this in the cultural, not racial context. Perhaps “oldtimers” will better understand my meaning on this than will some of the newbies. If you think this Taiwan newspaper situation is quite regretable, then don’t go to China…you’ll really lose your sanity, if in for the longhaul.

Maybe Washington should just turn over Taiwan to Beijing and that will end our Chinese headache for everyone.