I don’t read all “Taiwan News” articles but from what I do read, it seems to me they are always portraying Taiwan in a good light. Surely, there’s a lot of good stuff to report about Taiwan to the world. As someone who loves Taiwan, I am not bothered by that. But what concerns me is that they fail to properly report/discuss/debate some of the issues in Taiwan, specifically those affecting foreigners and immigrants. I understand that “Taiwan News” isn’t about opinion pieces and more about “news reporting” but it’s obvious they carefully choose what they write/want to share. There seems to be zero criticism of anything meaningful.
Also, I almost never see any high-quality and in-depth “original” articles with solid research and analysis (like ones you’d see in WSJ, NYT etc…), especially on topics that should be important to Taiwan (e.g. demographics, economy, education, industries, technology etc…).
Any suggestions for a good alternative source of news about Taiwan in English ? It doesn’t have to be in English. I can use “Google Translate”.
P.S. I also read “Taiwan Times” and “Taiwan Today”. Looking for additional recommendations.
I think either kind would be good :
High-Quality News (even if biased)
Low-Quality News (like Taiwan News) but neutral/unbiased
PS: I wonder if Chinese pressure/influence on Taiwanese media has anything to do with this.
They’re an opinion tabloid masquarading as a ‘news’ source.
I am pro Taiwan just like any other, but you’re right, they fail to report as objectively as possible, articles are written like a twelve year old and are designed to inflame as much as possible, no matter who is thrown under the bus and they often use a lot of unnecessary, unimportant loaded language.
For a ‘news’ organisation dedicated to pushing forward the sovereigntist cause, their actions hurt the very cause they are trying to promote.
They are the sovereigntist Global Times. An unfortunate ally in the sovereigntist cause, to the point where I’d rather call them an enemy to Taiwanese Independence.
Maybe they just want to counter the “Taiwan sucks and is not home” line that the KMT have been telling people for all their lives. Not necessarily the gold standard of journalistic integrity but they do what they can…
The Equal Times articles is particularly good. It’s professionally researched and written.
Also, I didn’t realize things were this bad in Taiwan for migrant workers. Not to take China’s side, but Taiwan should fix these human rights violations before pointing fingers at others, especially when talking about how a country treats certain vulnerable groups.
My wife is a Filipino and she was a blue-collar worker too and she would often complain to me about having to stand for hours in the factory, sometimes over 12 hours a day (with little rest in between). She got varicose veins within a year, after prolonged-standing conditions on the job. She wasn’t the only one. She said nearly all the workers in her factory got them too.
The reason for my post initially was because of a Taiwan-News article I read yesterday, where they were trying to point fingers at Indonesia for being unreasonable, without ever mentioning any of the issues Indonesian workers suffer at the hands of their Taiwanese employers or brokers.
You can read it here :
Taiwan News didn’t explore the other side of the coin, i.e. the Taiwanese brokers who abuse migrant workers with exorbitant fees. Somehow Taiwan, Taiwanese Employers and Taiwanese Brokers were portrayed as the poor victims of unreasonable “Indonesia” and their proposed “fees”.
Also strangely, this happened :
I am sure Indonesia has a raging COVID problem, but somehow, I feel like Taiwan banned Indonesians just to punish their government for proposing those fees. Again, reminds me of what China is doing to Australia (indirectly punishing them for a fair point they raised)