Media `localization' difficult to implement

"Localization has failed. The two regional editions just adopted different layouts and added some more local stories, but this does not amount to localization. The regional version didn't offer regional perspectives," he said.

Chen Feng-wei (陳豐偉), who established a Web site, Southern Newsletter (南方電子報), seven years ago, said, "The Kaohsiung office had adopted the same perspectives as the Taipei office in editing its local version, which means local editorial offices did not really make any difference. For instance, Kaohsiung voters had different political tendencies from those in Taipei in the last presidential election, but those tendencies weren't reflected in the newspaper's local edition," Chen said.

markets too similar

Chen, however, also offered a geographical explanation for the closure of the regional offices.

"Taiwan doesn't have big enough differences between regions to support regional newspapers," Chen said.

Yang Chih-hung (楊志弘), a professor in the communication management department of Ming Chuan University (銘傳大學), echoed Chen's comments by saying that lifestyles around the island do not vary enough for a regional newspaper.

"The differences between urban and rural lifestyles [in Taiwan] are not as wide as those between New York City and the mid-western states of the United States, which makes it very difficult for a regional newspaper to exist," Yang said.

A dismissed senior editor from Kaohsiung who wished to remain anonymous offered his insider's experience to explain the newspaper's failed regionalization.

"The policy was good, but there were problems with its implementation. The Kaohsiung office was editorially constrained by the Taipei headquarters. How could it edit a regionalized version with such constraints?" asked the dismissed editor.

The issue of whether the localization policy was a mistake is controversial, but the newspaper's current executive editor, Lin Sheng-fen (林聖芬), insists that the cutbacks were part of a restructuring by the China Times Group. The two regional editions continue to be produced from the Taipei office.

"We had certain reasons to establish the two local offices, and we can't judge whether it's a mistake or not from the perspective of today's different social and economic climate. The cutbacks are simply part of the company's restructuring," Lin said.