By C.K. Lee, president of Taipei Times
The initial motivation to set up the Taipei Times came from Dr. Lin Rong-san, founder of the Liberty Times. Dr. Lin is a successful entrepreneur and served as a member of the parliament for 12 years. His experience as an MP encompasses the triangular relationship between the US, China and Taiwan, in which Taiwan almost became a pawn in Sino-US relations. Taiwan
“our business strategy was to have a group of reporters and the right news policies to maintain local Taiwanese news characteristics”
Well the Taipei Times certainly has done a good job of that, joining the media mob that threw stones at Twu Shiing-jer.
Also let’s not forget Ruben Dario Benitez Palma, the Paraguayan diplomat sent packing because he allegedly gave an STD to four women. This, despite medical tests that proved he had no STD.
And I’m still trying to work out the news importance surrounding expensive gifts to Kelly Hsueh.
What’s even more amazing is the Taipei Times always rails against this type of media coverage, yet always follows the pack.
Must be because they want to “maintain local Taiwanese news characteristics.”
Huh?
Gentlemen, I
I got as far as [quote]The Taipei Times
[quote]At that time, this author was a professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the NTU and director of the university
Though that verbose mission statement is unlikely to win many hearts and minds for the Taipei Times, they do actually put out a pretty good newspaper. I’m sure most of the credit for that belongs to Lawrence Eyton, who would grace any paper in the world. I look forward to receiving my subscriber copy of the Times each day, and savour the good hour or more that I spend reading it (compared with the 15 minutes at most that it takes to read everything worth reading in either of the other local English rags). Yes, it has stupid typos, slack editing, glaring gaps in its news coverage, and a fair amount of rubbish in its pages. But it also has a lot of good content that far outweighs its shortcomings. Like many others, I had hoped for more in the way of in-depth local reporting. But I’m still well satisfied with my 15 dollars’ worth, and would be very disappointed by its demise.
Yeah, but it seems that Eyton achieves what he does in spite of the paper’s management rather than because of it.
Lee’s mission statement does absolutely nothing to dispel that idea, and I for one would like to see what the paper could do if it had competent management.
The paper was good when it started. The question remains: what happened?
So the mission is there on the status of Taiwan. But has the particular mission been accomplished? Some unfinished business is still left undone in my opinion for these minions of intellectually challenged:
They’re braindead! Or they don’t care about Chinese issues and that is the just same as being declared braindead for any such purposes.
[quote=“plato”]
Scroll down to the bit about LE:
and
Reverse Fascism, Racism of NWO Media[/quote]
And so what. Not that I agree, but general feelings against the Serbs were not that warm until they finally got rid of Milosevic.
CKlee901.
Prodigious cut-and-paste effort… well done.
I was, of course, unable to read all the way through your masterpiece and therefore unsure about the quality of its argument. Yet, I was impressed by the sheer QUANTITY OF WORDS in it.
Truly, a convincing display.
On the other hand…,
Did it ever occur to you that a newspaper that was designed to express the views of a country, but espouses no editorial principle as such, stands about as much chance of being an interesting read as another great mouthpiece of the masses: “The People’s Daily”?
Next time…
Have a point.
Is CK LEE making a statement, defending his paper, or what? As a concerned reader, I will be more impressed by what actions he IS GOING TO TAKE on making his paper a better one. Or was that mentioned in the text…
At least the effort and time of this Mr. Lee to post here and type his manifesto is a start?! So, someone IS paying attention to what we discuss here at segue.com!!
Now can any insider colloborate on the statements and his blur of words, that there is a change for the good going on at Taipei Times? Anyone???
[quote]The Taipei Times
Totally false. Laurence Eyton along with Anthony Laurance came up with the idea for a paper. At one point, the paper was not even going to be offered to the Liberty Times.
[quote]At traditional papers, the editor in chief, managing editors and section chiefs are given bureaucratic authority to promote and direct work in the system. The Taipei Times does not adopt this kind of operation.
Rather, we use a team method. Office space for each the team are arranged in such a way as to facilitate the production flow. The management does not have bigger desks. [/quote]
The fact that those who should be promoting and directing work are not allowed to has seriously hobbled the way the paper works. A team method?
C K Lee, the president, has his own office and his desk is huge. Perhaps he does not consider himself as management?
This whole thing is basically an idea in a Petrie dish. Does it have any relation to reality?
I wonder who gets these “quarterly salary readjustments”? Certainally not the little people who actually put the newspaper together every day. Must refer to the senior management I guess.
Oh my, oh my, oh my, for an insomniac this defense of the Taipei Times would possibly be the cure for all those sleepless nights. Print it out, that is is you have enough paper (it’s longer than the times itself), put it beside your bed and when you can’t sleep pick it up and start reading. You’ll get to the second paragraph if you’re lucky and …zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Actually, this isn’t a defense of the Taipei Times in response to the complaints about the paper. This was typed up many moons ago. Professor Lee had thought he had done such a great job in setting up the Taipei Times he decided to write about his efforts and send the result of for publication in the Harvard Business Review!
Gee great,
"I did a fantastic job, give me a pat on the back and some warm fuzzie feelings. " That’s what Lee should have said.
I think I’m gonna heave.
Let your work speak for itself, don’t write something so long and boring and…zzzzzzzzzzzz. Oops I started reading the original post again.
What I am actually starting to wonder is:
-Dave :?