The China Post gets a DNR Order

Somewhere in the hills, giant buildings frame an absolutely ginormous Buddha statue which shows Buddha holding the whole world in his hand. Because Buddhism is a religion of humility.

Several years ago the old Taiwan News went completely digital, fired all their staff, and just reposted CNA articles. Fortunately, those days are over, but now it looks like the venerable China Post is going that route. The newspaper has changed owners, and the reporting staff will be gone by the end of the month. I will miss the China Post, except for Joe Hung's commentaries. Its local coverage was often excellent, and it was a useful indicator of the KMT establishment views of things.

My man Donovan Smith, the ICRT news central Taiwan reporter, posted this to Facebook yesterday. Nobody knows more about the news than Donovan. Also, he has a very fine collection of whiskies which I am not going to share with you. I am just telling you that so you know he is cool...

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China Post has fired all but one of their staff I've now been told from multiple sources. If true, it is very sad news for a paper founded in 1952. At several times over the years it was "my paper", though at other times it was the China News (now Taiwan News) and Taipei Times--I rotated between them over the years.

This means that the news sources (for reading, leaving aside ICRT and TV) are now more diverse, and appears to be this:

Biggest:
CNA (Focus Taiwan), Taiwan's state-owned news agency produces the most content, but almost all (or all) translations/summaries of articles written first in Mandarin.
Taipei Times, the only remaining English print newspaper with (I think) the largest staff of journalists writing in English.

Mid-range:
The News Lens (The News Lens 關鍵評論網) does some great work--mostly big picture stuff--but doesn't cover the daily newspaper beat stuff for the most part.

Taiwan News (Taiwan News) does covers daily news beat stuff themselves and supplements that with CNA material so it does a pretty good job of covering the gamut, and has recently bounced back from near death under new, more energetic staff. A good compliment to The News Lens, each fills in what the other generally doesn't cover.

Smaller outfits:
The China Post. Not sure how this is going to work, but with one employee there is a limit to how much can be done. If they keep a CNA account they could still have a decent range of material daily.

Total Taipei (Total Taipei) provides a good dose of daily updates and articles, often on the serious and business side of things.

The Wild East news section also provides a good dose of daily updates that is actually a good compliment to Total Taipei in that it generally covers dramatic stories, especially crime, accidents and general mayhem that Total Taipei doesn't cover, and vice-versa.

There are others that are institutional (KMT website, RTI, Taiwan Today), specialized (Commonwealth's translations, ICRT's site, Queerious) and of course the bloggers and think piece sites (View from Taiwan, Frozen Garlic, Ketagalan Media, New Bloom, Solidarity.tw, Lao Ren Cha among others) and news aggregators (Taiwan Daily News in English Facebook page) that brings in local and international news (and which I every once in awhile contribute to) and sometimes the international press covers us here.

ADDED: to which I would add AmCham's Topics, whose writers are excellent and whose topics are timely, and Taiwan Sentinel, which routinely has forceful, insightful, and thoughtful analyses. Taiwan Review sometimes has good stuff too.
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