[b]We are often asked by site visitors which English newspaper is “better” – the China Post, the Taiwan News, or the Taipei Times. What’s your opinion?
Click on the “Post Reply” button to submit your comments.[/b]
I usually read the China Post but more out of habit than anything else. When I first got here two years ago a lot of the people I met read the China Post, so I just followed their lead. Old habits die hard.
The China Post has the best comics and usually has some good stories that can be used for discussion in EFL classes, but I don’t much care for its editorials. The Taiwan News has more interesting features and commentators than the China Post and some amusing comics as well. I prefer to read its editorials over the China Post’s. The Taipei Times is my preferred reading because it is online and, therefore, free.
I would like all these papers a lot better if they’d spend more time proofreading the articles written by their staff writers. There are far too many grammatical, usage, and sentence structure errors in the English, and far too many typos, too.
The Taipei Times is great for news and information from Taiwan and around the world. Plus, they’ve got great editorial articles. My first choice for Monday - Friday reading. I especially enjoy reading the back section of the business section about international companies.
The China Post is great for easy reading and entertainment. I especially like reading this paper on Friday and the weekends. Check out weekend section for what’s happeing in Taipei. The movie reviews are also pretty good.
The Taiwan News is pretty much a useless paper. They seems to copy everything from every other newspaper in Taiwan. Plus, they seem to be pretty careless when printing articles. Lots of gramatical and spelling errors. Purchase this paper as a last resort!!! Better yet, don’t waste your money.
I used to try and keep up with the news in Taiwan but to be honest, I don’t feel that the quality of the writing and research is up to par. It’s frustrating when I get through an entire paper only to realize that maybe only one or two articles were worth reading and the rest of the paper was just junk.
Part of the problem also is that I can’t read Chinese well enough to read the local Chinese papers… my fault as I’m still learning the language. Still, when I talk to my local friends and colleagues, it seems that there is so much more going on in the news that never gets reported in the local English papers.
Does anyone know about the general history, management, and political slant of each of the papers? I think I heard once that the China Post leans towards the KMT and the Taipei Times towards the DPP, though I can’t remember exactly. I’d be curious to know. Thanks.
… FYI… the Taiwan News also has an online presence and actually, their website is not that bad. They teamed up with Yam.com to form the thenews.com.tw. You can read about the background of this partnership here http://www.thenews.com.tw/service/s_aboutus.htm.
P.S. I don’t work for these guys even though it sounds like I’m promoting them. Neutral party here, I just happen to know this information and thought I’d post it up.
I used to read what was called the China News (now Taiwan News), but became very disappointed in the complete lack of journalistic integrity during the building of the Bayer plant near Taichung. The journalist who was covering the protests of the plant also wrote scathing, sarcastic, and entirely unfair editorials about the protesters. Certainly any credible appearance of objectivity was out the window there. The editorials themselves were inflammatory enough to be evidence of malice in the States. Lucky for him, he wasn’t in the States, because the inaccuracy of his facts would have gotten his paper sued.
The China Post has always struck me as a paper with a VERY strong New Party bias. I suppose that is fine if you really DO think that Taiwan is a renegade province and that LTH is an agent of the devil. But if you are looking for objective journalism, you’re out of luck their as well.
The Taipei Times started with a lot of promise. The original investors hired first class journalistic and editorials staff (not just out of work English teachers and translators). Unfortunately, management failed to give the editorial staff the freedom to decide what the news was. The net result was just another biased and mediocre paper.
For world class newspapers, I still go to the South China Morning Post, Asian Wall Street Journal, Bangkok Star, and Times of India.
The fact that there are 3 English newspapers in this market is the one thing that really surprises me. Without a doubt, The China Post has always been my favorite. They have some interesting coverage on business, great comics, sports and the Friday Prime Time is awesome.
I would tend to disagree that the Post has a heavy slant to the New Party - I have seen them sway between the New Party, KMT and even support the renegade Soong. So I really don’t think they have any political affiliations.
However, as to the other 2 papers, the Taipei Times is heavily PRO Lee and KMT. If you look at the history of the Liberty Times and their coverage, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And the Taiwan News is heavy in the DPP camp. I believe Luis Ko (their chairman) is part of Chen’s administration - although I don’t remember what post he was assigned.
At the end of the day, I have to stick to reading the least biased paper, which is The China Post. Besides, they have a crossword I can solve!
It is sad to think that with three English newspapers here in Taiwan you can’t get at least one that is good. I thought when the Taipei Times came along it would make a change, but it hasn’t been any better. It looks much prettier, but if you actually read it is not so good. And it is full of mistakes.
I think they all have problems, but I choose China Post because even though it does not look as nice as the Taipei Times it has interesting stories on health and science and things. Taiwan News is not too bad. I definitely prefer that one for business news, which I am interested in. None of the papers cover business very well.
Finally, I don’t think Taipei Times is biased toward KMT and Lee. While Liberty Times, which owns Taipei Times, is certainly KMT, I think that the paper is in fact very biased toward DPP. I heard that the Editor of Taipei Times actually wrote Chen’s inauguration speech. Anyone know if that is true?
Well, I do agree with the previous comment. I am going to stick with South China Morning Post and Asia Wall Street Journal
When I first came here, I used to buy newspapers everyday and was honestly interested on what’s going on around me till one day I realized that I am buying newspapers only to scan through them, look at the pictures and throw them in the garbage can. So now, I decided to be more environment friendly 
(Save the trees!). I only try to buy news dailies when I get an impulse to do so (when there is nothing left to do at home or in this city!), or need to checkout what’s showing at the cinema (since they don’t have a movieguide online) and grab whatever would be available at 7-11. I basically get the news about Taiwan over at the CNN.
There’s a very scarce supply of good and perceptive English writers here in Taiwan. I guess the good ones are all writing in Mandarin.
And to Taiwan News (and I know you are being owned by the owners of IMEIFOODS), can you please stop putting GIANT ads on your newspaper’s frontpage? That’s a mortal sin in journalism!
Kudos to the Taipei Times for a very good layout, though recently I noticed, they just do a “cut and paste” job. I would be glad to see more original articles written here. Do you accept contributions?
To China news, my lips are sealed. Ho-hum!
I love reading newspapers, and over the years have developed my own reasons for reading the different papers that are available here.
It may at first seem odd that there seems to be little ‘original writing’ in the regular English dailies. But then if you think about the tough factors involved – English speaking salaries, relatively small circulations, ‘expensive’ cover prices – then maybe you wonder less about why getting and keeping good writers/editors at the papers seems like such a challenge.
CHINA POST – These days, I buy this paper the least becuase my office subscribes to it. In fact, I’d bet that the Post continues to have a far lead in terms of real business. A friend of mine who regularly advertised for his restaurant in the English papers had a creative way of gauging which of the three were most worthy of his ad-dollar: he’d ask the folks at his local 7-11 which papers were routinely sold out. He was (a little) surprised to discover that the News and the Times were re-picked up by their fulfillment depts, but the Post was usually sold out.
My own neighborhood convenience store usually sells out of the Post, while the other two can expect to see their outer pages removed and stacked (what do they do with those?)
I regularly read the Friday PRIMETIME section – I wonder if my boss wonders whatever happens to her copies of it – because I like to read the movie reviews. I usually find that for movies that Nelson and Carson like (which isn’t often, I’ve noticed) I get disappointed because they set my expectations so high – Shanghai Noon and Crouching Tiger were good, but they raised my expectations so high, there was nowhere else to go but down. For movies they pan, altho I may agree with them, enjoy them a little bit more because, damn, these guys are rough on the films.
What I don’t like about the Post is their (lack of) organization. I can only guess where their Sports and Business sections are, and the only comic I like is Dilbert.
TAIWAN NEWS – I was really happy when they first re-organized their paper and fixed the Sports (last page first section) and Business (first page last sectin) sections in place. Also, even though they only have 4 strips, I love three of them!
Ann Gavaghan’s Weekend movies are also nice to read – she’s even tougher than Carson and Nelson: it’s kinda funny/fun seeing her skewer a movie – its clear she enjoys doing it. Now, she’s reviewing restaurants, too, and I have yet to read a positive one from her! (Taking her out for dinner and a movie must be REAL rough, huh?)
Also, Marie Feliciano’s Kabayan section beats out Art Padua’s Mabuhay in the Post, imho. She seems more in touch with more kinds of people – altho I haven’t been reading either as regularly of late.
I was also glad when they started to print more op-ed from wires – hey, it’s cheaper than buying the Trib!
TAIPEI TIMES – who’s gonna argue with the presentation of this paper? I agree that it falls short in the content department. OK, I haven’t given its Friday section much of a chance, but then I can almost never find it!
Thank goodness they had the sense to put the Sports and Business sections in fixed places. But, what’s up with those comics? Better to make their own, huh?
Also, what happened to some of those good ideas they had at the start – the ecompanies column and funky stat/quote/factoid in the upper corner of the second page? OK, I never bought the paper because of the funky stat/quote thing, but I definately used to pick up Monday’s edition for the eBusiness profile.
So what is the best one in my book? To be honest, I wish all three would combine into one paper. But if I only had NT$15 bucks in my pocket and was dying for something to bring along to the WC, it’d be (in order) Taipei Times, Taiwan News, China Post. Unless it was Friday and then the order would be reversed.
Congratulations to the Taipei Times – for making it to the WSJ’s OpinionJournal.com favorites list (opinionjournal.com/favorite/)!
Then again, the Journal left out a favorite of mine (the NY Times!) and in its place put the NY Post! I can understand why the left the NYT off their list; but the Post?!?! Ever since Araton and P. Vecsey left, the Post has never been the same for me 
Ciao.
I would just like to react to an earlier response, which said that the China News (now Taiwan News) seems to copy almost everything from any other news paper in Taiwan. Actually, I happen to know that it is the other way around. It was the China News that came up with the Friday section (places to go; I forgot the section’s name) that was copied very quickly by the China Post, the Career Quest that was copied within one or two weeks by the China Post, and I can go on like this… NO, I do NOT work for the China News, nor am I being paid by them to post this message, I just feel it is my duty to set things straight here. As to which paper I like reading most, well, the Post is more for entertainment, the News is too businesslike for me, so I guess I like reading the Taipei Times most.
For reference:
The China Post @ http://www.chinapost.com.tw
The Taipei Times @ http://www.taipeitimes.com
The Taiwan News @ http://www.thenews.com.tw
Message for Gus… how the heck did you get that smiley to stick its tongue out… I did not see that as a choice to select from when posting this message…
[This message has been edited by Administrator (edited 18 September 2000).]
The Taipei Times. It’s got the nearest thing to ‘brain food’ on Taiwanese topics, the layout’s brill and the quality of the English beats the others hands down. I will ONLY buy the other papers if my chosen shop’s sold out of Taipei Times. I don’t give a flying rusty one about sports, cartoons or business. I want to read a paper that tells me about the place I’m living in in a way that takes it for granted that I DO actually have some grey matter that needs challenging. So there.
The local English papers are, clearly, no New York Times or the Financial Times.
Neverthelss, I think readers who want to learn about Taiwanese politics from a DPP-leaning perspective should read the Taipei Times and Taiwan News.
Regarding the China Post comment:
“I would tend to disagree that the Post has a heavy slant to the New Party - I have seen them sway between the New Party, KMT and even support the renegade Soong. So I really don’t think they have any political affiliations.”
Well, everyone knows the New Party supported Mr. Soong, and supporting “the renegade” Soong is perfect for them!
I am always amused when I hear people complain about the English mistakes in the papers. Most copy editors at the English papers make about NT$40,000 tops, and have to give their social life to work at night. No one wants to do that work when you can teach English and at least have half a life. (And where’s the financial incentive to catch every mistake?)
Taipei Times for editorial and local news recaps.
I’m a bit surprised by some of the responses. I have never worked for any of the three papers, but I have been involved enough in the news field to be very familiar with all of them.
The China Post is clearly the worst of the three papers in every sense except its advertising revenue. Its copyediting is a complete joke, even by Taiwan’s low standards. (If any of you have English students, warn them to stay far away from this paper, lest they pick up too many bad habits or waste too much time puzzling over some absurd error.) Its layout is confusing, awkward, and ugly – something that’s also reflected in its mess of a website. Its editorials are often naive and absurd. If you don’t care about anything other than restaurant reviews, cartoons, and expat activities, then maybe the China Post is OK. Otherwise, stay clear.
The Taiwan News has some good things, notably the bilingual roundtable section. As someone noted earlier, Ann Gavaghan, the Weekend writer, is great – but she seems to have left. (Ann, come back!) The paper might be going through some hard times, as evidenced by the recent closure of its website.
The Taipei Times wants to be great, and it sometimes is. Excellent layout. Best political coverage. Usually the best editorials. Great website. But it’s the newbie, and this shows sometimes. Needs more care, esp. in its Sunday and Monday editions. (I guess its best editors and copyeditors get the weekends off.)
So I tend to switch back and forth between the Taipei Times and the Taiwan News, depending on the types of stories I’m most interested in at the time.