Taiwan News

Taiwan News (formerly China News[2]) is an English-language news website and former newspaper in Taiwan. It is published by foods company I-Mei Foods, which also publishes the Chinese-language news weekly of the same name.[1]

Taiwan News
TypeOnline newspaper
FormatOnline
Owner(s)I-Mei Foods
PublisherLuis Ko
Founded1949 (as China News)
Political alignmentPan-Green[1]
HeadquartersTaipei, Taiwan
Websitewww.taiwannews.com.tw
Taiwan News
Traditional Chinese臺灣英文新聞
Simplified Chinese台湾英文新闻
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese英文臺灣日報
Simplified Chinese英文台湾日报
China News
Traditional Chinese英文中國日報
Simplified Chinese英文中国日报

History

China News was founded on 6 June 1949 in Taipei by James Wei,[3] a journalist with close ties to the KMT and former employee of the Ministry of Information.[4]:1858 The newspaper was established to cater for foreign residents and the local population in Taiwan.[4]:1858 At the time it was the only English-language daily newspaper in Taiwan and it was a newspaper published in the afternoon. Later on, in order to compete with its new competitor, China News had to change and was published in the morning in order not to lose its advertisements.[1]

In 1960, the newspaper switched to block printing in a full-size page format.[2]

Wei left the newspaper in 1965. Wei was also a Reuters correspondent and deputy director of the Central News Agency. During his later years he was the sixth Director of the Government Information Office, serving from October 31, 1966, to June 1, 1972. Wei was a close advisor to Chiang Ching-kuo.[5][6]

China News ran into financial difficulties in 1996 and received capital injection from I-Mei Foods, but the management of the newspaper was unchanged.[4]:1858 In May 1999, I-Mei Foods acquired 50 percent stake in the newspaper for NTD$60 million (US$1.8 million).[3] The newspaper's name was changed to Taiwan News to reflect the newspaper's new focus on readers in Taiwan and to avoid confusion with China Daily and China News Service.[3] After the change in ownership, Taiwan News increased its page count and lowered staff wages.[7][3] Under the ownership of I-Mei Foods, Simone Wei became the newspaper's chairperson and I-Mei CEO Kao Chih-ming became the publisher.[8]

By 1998, 63 percent of Taiwan News' readership were local readers and the rest were businesspeople, diplomats, academics, teachers and students from overseas.[9]:149 Taiwan News mainly republished wire stories and had few articles with original reporting, due to the lack of financial resources to hire English-speaking journalists and an English-speaking environment in Taiwan.[4]:1859

On 1 January 2008, the Taiwan News started to publish in a tabloid format and abandoned the broadsheet format. On 28 February 2015, Taiwan News published its last print edition and became an online newspaper exclusively. It is now published online in both English and Mandarin versions.

Editorial position

Under the ownership of I-Mei Foods, which is strongly associated with the Taiwanese identity, Taiwan News changed its the editorial from being pro-KMT to being in favor of the Pan-Green coalition and Taiwan independence.[1][4]:1858 According to former editor Anthony Lawrance, Taiwan News opposes autocracies and the People's Republic of China.[4]:1858 In the late 1990s, Taiwan News rejected Chinese unification as advocated by the KMT and associations of Taiwan with the People's Republic of China under the "one country, two systems" principle.[4]:1858

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See also
  • Media of Taiwan

References
  1. 滕, 淑芬 (May 1991). "敲開國際大門──英文報市場硝煙四起". Taiwan Panorama. Archived from the original on 16 March 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  2. Wilcox, Dennis L. (1967). English Language Newspapers Abroad: A Guide to Daily Newspapers in 56 Non-English-speaking Countries. Gale Research Company.
  3. "Focus: Taipei's China News reborn - as Taiwan News". Reuters News. 12 May 1999.
  4. Lams, Lutgard (May 2011). "Newspapers' narratives based on wire stories: Facsimiles of input?". Journal of Pragmatics. 43 (7): 1853–1864. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.021.
  5. "Inventory of the James Wei diaries". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  6. "A farewell to a wise and boon companion - James (Sanyeh Wei)". Taiwan Today. 1 November 1982. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  7. Frazier, David; Scanlan, Sean (1 August 1999). "Paper Tiger". Asian Business. Vol. 35 no. 8. ISSN 0254-3729.
  8. "Taiwan's China News gets cash boost, changes name". Reuters News. 12 May 1999.
  9. Lams, Lutgard (2008). "Media Panic or Manic: The 2004 Taiwan Parliamentary Election in the Local English-Language Press" (PDF). Taiwan International Studies Quarterly. 4 (4): 145–184.
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