Former Government Information Office (GIO) chief Su Tzen-ping (
Former TTV president Hu Yuan-hui (胡元輝) became the agency's new president.
In a board meeting yesterday, Hu appointed the news agency's current editor-in-chief, Lee Wan-lai (
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CNA
With the CNA struggling to find direction and suffering financially, the new leadership promised to reform the agency.
"The news agency's reform is very similar to Taiwan's democracy struggle," Su said. "We will try our best to make it more professional."
Hu said he wanted the news agency to improve the role CNA plays as the nation's news agency, and to include more high-tech communication channels in its services.
But he told the Taipei Times he would need more time to set policies for the future.
Su and Hu are the latest senior DPP figures to take over the leadership of major state-owned organizations.
Pro-DPP businessman and former head of the Aurora Group Kuo Chin-tsai (
Su has been a reporter since the late 1980s and has served as executive editor of the Independence Morning Post and a chief editorial writer at the Taiwan Daily News.
Hu worked closely with Su while Hu was a reporter, news editor and editor-in-chief at the Independence Evening Post.
An employee of the news agency who declined to be identified said that he welcomed the new appointments.
"Both of them are professional journalists. President Su even fought for our budgets in the Legislative Yuan when he was the director of the GIO," the employee said.
CNA was founded in 1924 in Guangzhou and moved to Taipei with the KMT government in 1949. It become the national news agency in 1996.
It provides news stories in Chinese, English and Spanish to news organizations around the world.
Su replaced Hsiao Teng-tzang (
Hu took over from Billy Wang (
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C