Thursday, August 09, 2007

Media Management (in)Eptitude

The Taipei Times reported today on another approach in the efforts of the KMT to influence media discourse about Taiwan -- websites offering news about Taiwan in English and Japanese:


Stephen Chen (陳錫蕃), a think tank member and former representative to the US, said there were 258 English articles about party policies, general news, survey results and editorial pieces on the English Web site, and 80 articles on the Japanese site.

"The establishment of the Web sites will help to counter the biased reports of pro-green English [language] newspapers, promote the party and create an international election Web site for our presidential candidate," Chen said.

The sites will offer immediate translation of important events, including the party's major policies and KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) speeches, he said.

It will also provide recent poll results, news analysis from the KMT think tank and selected party news every day, Chen said.

Arguing that English-language newspapers in Taiwan tend to carry negative reports about the KMT and that many foreign correspondents favor the Democratic Progressive Party, Chen said the KMT would take a more aggressive approach to promote itself internationally through the sites.

While expressing support for the party's effort to strengthen its image, KMT Central Standing Committee member Lien Sheng-wen (連勝文) suggested that the two Web sites include "Taiwan" in the Web address, as most foreigners would type the term when searching for Taiwan-related information on the Internet.

KMT Deputy Chairman and Legislator Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) came up with the idea of launching the foreign-language Web sites after visiting Japan last year and being disturbed by the fact that Japanese officials were all reading English-language Taiwanese papers that he felt were biased against the KMT, a party press release said.

The English and Japanese sites can be found on www.kuomintangnews.org, www.taipeinews.org and http://www.kmtnews.net/.


You gotta love the KMT -- so China-centered that they have to be reminded to put "Taiwan" in the website -- or maybe just self-centered. Meanwhile, you can enjoy for one second a display of ineptitude that would be amusing if it weren't so common. As the Taipei Times gleefully observes:

However, the opening page on all three entry sites has the KMT's name misspelled as "Koumintang."
Laughing? Well, let's see how the good guys are doing. David Lu of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECRO) in San Francisco, a branch of Taiwan's officially unofficial representative office in the US, wrote an opinion piece on the exclusion of Taiwan from the UN that appeared in a San Diego paper earlier this week. It's studded with errors of history, language, and style. The lowlights with my comments in red:
Since 1945, the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China has ruled Taiwan until this decade, when the Democratic Progressive Party gained a majority. Regardless of how the Treaty of Peace is interpreted, the fact remains that the People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan for even a single day. [MT: love that error -- "Since 1945...until this decade." What, can't find anyone in the office to check the Anglais grammar? No professional rewriters in San Francisco?]

How then can the People's Republic of China lay claim to Taiwan just because the Ching dynasty (Manchurian) ruled Taiwan before? Under this flawed reasoning, the Yuan dynasty (Mongolian Empire) seated at Beijing, which ruled most of Europe once, would be allowed to claim most of Europe. Also, Spain or Mexico could claim California. [MT: In the usual usage it's Manchu, not Manchurian; Mongol, not Mongolian. Did the Mongols rule most of Europe? In my history books they pulled up short in Poland. I suppose if you count everything west of the Urals.....]

Also, the exclusion of Taiwan is against the universal value of self-determination that the U.N. itself has vowed to safeguard. Taiwan and China have developed very differently during the 100-plus years of separation. Taiwan has its own government, territory and people. It has achieved its good standing in the international community based on its own merit and does not deserve to be lumped in with China. [MT: Style issues: the beginning of a paragraph with also is limp. The list in the third sentence lacks a comma after territory. And check this out -- the author takes the position during the 100 years of separation that Taiwan and China are separated. Yech.]

Let's examine the cases of North and South Korea, and East and West Germany. All were separated by World War II, but none of them claimed to represent the other side. The international community did not reject any side from joining the U.N. In both of these cases, both sides were evenly matched, having a similar population and military might. [MT: either side, not any side. Is Taiwan so poor it cannot afford to have this stuff rewritten? Note that the writer's position implies that Taiwan is in fact a split piece of China, since the cases he has chosen represent split nations. Ugh. The writer's position thus contradicts his points about the PRC having never ruled the island, and its false claims to it. The writer also makes a gross historical error -- and I do mean gross -- in all the Cold War cases at least one side, and often both, claimed to be the sole representative of the nation in question. For example, West Germany conducted a bitter campaign during the Cold War to isolate East Germany under the Hallstein doctrine. China's isolation of Taiwan simply follows the policy established by the western powers with respect to the states they supported: isolate the other side. Are there no experts whom these people can turn to for advice? It should be routine to run this stuff past people who know what they are talking about.]

In our case, there is a drastic contrast between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. China, as a rising power, has continually asserted its power to isolate Taiwan to the point that even the U.N. has strayed from its founding principals.[MT: Founding principals? Well, U Thant was a headmaster.....tit for tat baby -- for the ROC isolated China and kept it out of international organizations for many years.]

Finally, excluding Taiwan from the U.N. is simply unjust. It not only discounts Taiwan's 23 million people from international consideration, but also prevents one of the most able-bodied nations to contribute to the greater good. Instead, Taiwan's exclusion proves that if you are bigger and stronger, you can bully your way into getting what you want. Wasn't that what the U.N. was created to stop?[MT: one of the most-able bodied nations? What a bizarre image that conjures up in the mind! I guess it is no wonder Taiwan is being Shanghai'ed by China, given that we're so able-bodied. Note the basic English error prevents....to contribute....instead of prevents....from contributing. Are there no professionals in San Francisco who can rewrite this? ]
Note how the tone is plaintive and supplicating, instead of assertive and decisive. The sentences lack a clear, crisp flow, there is not a single memorable line -- in other words, no message lingers in the reader's mind -- the lack in fact clearly implying that Taipei does not have a message -- it does not restate its points and finish with a bang .... instead it meanders in fine Chinese style, circling its ideas rather than pouncing on them. That may sell in Beijing or Taipei, but not in Washington.

The lack of professionalism displayed in this piece is terribly disheartening, especially since so much depends on the ability of Taiwan's representatives to clearly communicate the issues. This appears to be the kind of piece whose actual audience is not the readers of the paper, but the superiors of the writer back in their offices in Taipei. See what I've done? it says.

Ya done wrong, is what it actually says.

It's long past time for an injection of professionalism into Taipei's efforts to engage the outside world.


13 comments:

阿牛 said...

I caught this today too, but only after I read this ETToday article that was full of shocking errors:

斥自由時報英文報歪曲解釋 藍營成立雙語網站反擊
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/070808/17/ig3q.html

國民黨中央常會8日舉行中常會,會中宣布成立英、日文網站,副主席江丙坤、中常委連勝文,痛斥以自由報系為主體的「TAIWAN NEWS」傳送給國外人士褊狹「台灣意識」,且把國民黨解釋成「親中反日」政黨,所以國民黨成立英、日文網站,以正國際視聽。

中常會8日於國民黨中央黨部中山廳舉行,除討論黨員繳費的細節外,特別開放媒體採訪有關國民黨網站新製作英、日文網站,做為對國際傳播台灣主流民意正確訊息。

主席吳伯雄表示,此網站成立三大宗旨為,反制親綠外文媒體不實的報導,宣傳國民黨的資訊及2008總統選舉國民黨對海外人士的報導。副主席江丙坤表示,成立此網站是緣於去年7月與馬英九主席前往日本時,日本政體因中國逐步強大,於是原本以親中為主體想法轉為台灣親善。但因日本的智庫及國會議員,所接受的訊息是以自由時報為主體的英文報,導致把國民黨傳播為「親中反日」政黨,為扭轉此國際視聽,於是開始籌劃英、日文網站。

中常委連勝文發言時指出,他的外國朋友主要接觸外文以GOOGLE SERCHER 「TAIWAN」所以建議本黨英、日文網站應加TAIWAN。另外對於外國駐華媒體,以親綠為主,把部份民意視為主流民意,加上TAIWAN NEWS的狹隘的台灣意識報導,讓外國人誤認為報導訊息為台灣主流民意,所以國民黨應加強國外駐台記者溝通,並利用本黨的網站有效的傳播台灣主流民意。

Anonymous said...

I just don't see media professionals turning to that site for information.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but nit-picking grammar is weak. When you focus on such trivial details, you really come across as a zealot.

Anonymous said...

The Japanese language is the key to Taiwan’s hearts and minds across ethnic groups. Fifty-five years* on, it remains the heirloom Japan bequeathed on those she educated. How weird that a multi-lingual ex-colony did not adopt the unifying language of their former colonizer as official language. Is there any Taiwan-published Japanese language daily available at the newsstand?
(*)Taiwan remained Japanese territory until April 28, 1952

Michael Turton said...

Anon, when you are preparing a document for publication as a representative of your organization, you can't be too stringent. People judge you by your grammar and spelling, as much as they judge you by content. How often do you see simple errors like the ones in this piece in public documents prepared for large corporations or for the US government abroad?

The language problems I pointed out are easily curable by running the document past an educated native speaker who has real writing skills. It costs next to nothing to ensure that Taiwan's representation looks good when it goes out into the world. So why isn't it done?

Michael

Anonymous said...

"The establishment of the Web sites will help to counter the biased reports of pro-green English [language] newspapers"

What does this mean - the China Post isn't pro-blue enough for the KMT?

Anonymous said...

from the DPP english language website:

//If preventive measures fail or the accident happens and make situation out of control, crisis might be emerging. Under such situation, Taiwan should still try to avoid escalation of intension and to settle such crisis, which need to be managed under time pressure.//

if the KMT is weak and inept because one poor fob hasn't mastered the nuances of the english language, the DPP must be anemic.

at least i can understand the gist of the KMT article.

Runsun said...

Imagine the head of AIT (American Institute in Taiwan), intending to talk to Taiwanese, post an article in Liberty Times in broken Chinese ......

Michael Turton said...

Anon --

What are you talking about? I didn't post any KMT article. I posted an article from the Taipei Times and an article from one of Taiwan's diplomatic corps. Are you sure you are posting on the right post?

Michael

Anonymous said...

I checked out the link yesterday to the KMT website. In one word it can be described as "comical".

Its just hit-piece after hit-piece of one-sided articles. I'm guessing they get all their news from the China Post. An even bigger laugh can be found in their CKS biography. It's really calling out for a MT or JK slapdown.

Its amazing they put so much money into this project ( NT$3 million) and came out with such a amateur hack website (content and appearance). Do they really think western media will take them seriously? What a bunch of knuckleheads. They are just as bad as the BushCo./FoxSnooze media propaganda machine.

Lastly, it's remarkable they decided not to put any type of contact link of their site.

Runsun said...

(Stephen) Chen said the KMT would take a more aggressive approach to promote itself internationally through the sites.

See how aggressive they are:

How KNN Twists A Report

Angry Taiwanese Guy said...

Hey Michael, could you help write an essay that is strong? I mean the NYC community does the SAME THING. The articles are generally terrible. Most of the press releases are 4-5 page rants that go on forever without direction.

Michael Turton said...

Sure, Sean. But can you guarantee that it will make it into print without any changes from a boss on the way through the System?

Michael