Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Jun 08 2001

It turns out that a host of copyeditors are leavin…

It turns out that a host of copyeditors are leaving the Taiwan News, mostly because the DPP has totally taken it over and the new guy in charge’s title is something more akin to “Comrade Political Officer” as Dean, another former News drone, puts it. Get this: they’re actually firing their native English-speaking copyeditors and hiring Taiwanese copyeditors! People who have, at most, only a passing knowlege of English as a second language, I’m sorry, aren’t your best choice for editing English-language content. The really sad thing is, however, that the DPP is proving that it is no different than the KMT was in days of yore back when the Chiang Kai-shek controlled the media with an iron fist. I knew from the moment I-mei bought controlling interest in the News, that it wasn’t going to work out, but I never expected it to go this far. Taiwan cannot support three English-language newspapers, and nobody that I know will want to spend their hard-earned NT$15 on what is basically a DPP party pamplet full of KMT-bashing and “James Soong Evil Incarnate, Experts Say”-type articles. Well, actually, I just described the Taipei Times, which is pretty popular with foreigners here because it looks pretty and has big pictures. Still I doubt that people will go for equally biased articles with poorly laid out, mistake-ridden Chinglish content, which is the only that will be available from the Taiwan News.

So we have a choice now between:

1) Biased content that looks good (The Taipei Times)

2) Relatively unbiased content that looks terrible (The China Post)

3) Biased, unprofessional content that looks like crap (The Taiwan News)

Ah, democracy! The freedom to choose!

I wasn’t gouged too badly for the new chain, but the guy who put it on also fooled around with my rear brake, and now it is really hard to shift from neutral into 2nd gear, which is annoying and also rough on the top of my foot, which I use to shift.

The weather has gotten into its usual “Thunderstorm-each-day” mode, and it’s raining pretty heavily outside today. The cicadas have started singing their tunes as well, which is always music to my ears. There were always cicadas in the summers when I was growing up, in Texas and Florida and other places like that, and they always bring to mind lazy summer afternoons, after school lets out and vacation seems like a vast ocean lying at your feet.

posted by Poagao at 7:05 am  

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