The nation’s last evening newspaper closed after publishing its final edition yesterday.
The Chinese-language United Evening News said in a statement that it decided to end publication due to the “changing habits of readers, development of digital media and the COVID-19 outbreak.”
“The decision to cease publication starting [today] was finalized this [yesterday] morning, but we had been evaluating that option over the past few years,” managing editor Wang Mao-chen (王茂臻) said.
Photo: CNA
Wang said that the newspaper’s circulation had been declining annually, as have other print media in the nation.
“However, we cannot break even anymore with the circulation we have at the moment,” he said.
It said it would offer subscribers a refund or allow them to transfer their subscription to another United Daily News Group (UDN) publication, and it would retain all of its reporters.
The front page of its final edition featured images of its 11,783 front pages published over the past 32 years and three months with the text “thank you” in Mandarin in large font.
UDN founder Wang Tiwu (王惕吾) established the newspaper on Feb. 22, 1988, shortly after the government on Jan. 1, 1988, lifted a newspaper ban.
It was the nation’s first Chinese-language paper to print in landscape orientation.
“As the only evening newspaper in the nation, the United Evening News has accomplished its purpose in the nation’s history of development. We thank our readers for their support, which has helped sustain us for more than 10,000 days,” it said.
In February, Chinese-language weekly tabloid Next Magazine folded its online publication after ending its print edition in 2018.
In addition to the United Evening News, the nation previously had two other evening newspapers: China Times Express and Independent Evening Post, founded in 1988 and 1947 respectively.
The China Times Express ended publication on Oct. 31, 2005, due to shortfalls in advertising revenue as 24-hour cable TV news rose in popularity.
It also experienced a sharp decline of subscribers following an economic slump, the rising influence of online news and the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s decision to extend trading until 1:30pm.
Its management tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a merger with United Evening News.
The Independent Evening Post distinguished itself as unaffiliated with political parties.
It ceased publication on Oct. 2, 2001, after years of financial losses and management changes.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift