Former minister of culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) has taken over as chairman of the Central News Agency (CNA) and Tseng Yen-ching (曾嬿卿) has become the first female president of the 100-year-old news organization.
At a ceremony in Taipei on Monday at which Executive Yuan Secretary-General Li Men-yen (李孟諺) announced the CNA’s new board directors and supervisors, Lee took the official chairman’s seal from Liu Ka-shiang (劉克襄), whose second three-year term ended on Friday last week.
Speaking at the ceremony, which was also attended by Minister of Culture Shih Che (史哲), Lee said he entered politics by accident 20 years ago after having worked in the media, and he was now returning to the media, also by accident.
Photo: CNA
Lee said he was honored to chair the CNA, the oldest national news agency in Taiwan, and vowed to work together with his colleagues.
Saying that news firms need to earn the public’s trust, he pledged to do his best to lead the CNA in providing objective, balanced and accurate news, and giving readers a better understanding of Taiwan, particularly at a time when society is full of misinformation.
Lee served as culture minister from May 2020 until January, during which time he oversaw the launch of TaiwanPlus, the country’s first English-only video news and programming platform for an international audience.
Outside of politics, Lee worked at the Public Television Service, and the now-defunct Independence Evening Post.
In 1987, Lee and Independence Evening Post colleague Hsu Lu (徐璐) became the first Taiwanese journalists to visit China since the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949.
Also speaking at the ceremony, Liu said that during his six years at the CNA, many people expressed their appreciation for the agency because its reports were an anchor that stabilized society amid chaos.
Liu said he had faith that Lee would lead the CNA in continuing to help strengthen the nation.
At a board meeting on Monday, the CNA announced that Tseng, who had been its vice president since 2017, would become its president and the opening she left would be filled by CNA editor-in-chief Jay Chen (陳正杰).
Deputy editor-in-chief Chris Wang (王思捷) has taken over Chen’s post as editor-in-chief, and Liang Hui-ling (梁惠玲) has become the supervisor of the CNA’s business operations division.
Tseng, who served as vice president of Wealth Bi-weekly Magazine from 2013 to 2017, said she would work to reinforce the CNA’s foreign-language news and international news coverage.
In addition to Lee, the new board of 15 directors includes writer Chu Yu-hsun (朱宥勳), Huang Mei-e (黃美娥), a professor of National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, senior media staffer Chang Tien-wan (張典婉), Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋), filmmaker Ado Kaliting Pacidal and CNA union representative Ke Ming-feng (葛明鳳).
The three new supervisors are Kew & Lord Kenneth managing partner Chiu Huang-chuan (邱晃泉), National Taiwan University professor of accounting Lin Chan-chuan (林嬋娟) and Baker & McKenzie partner Shao Chiung-hui (邵瓊慧).
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