NOWnews_今日傳媒股份有限公司

Pújú Island.

Your own people are always right.

I only recently found out that for years, all of our content had been provided to a competing media outlet for free, supposedly as an “exchange.” But the other party could freely copy our articles and photos, and even the logo mysteriously disappeared. As soon as a news story was published, it would immediately appear on the competitor’s website. I didn’t even know which company I actually worked for anymore. ^^

Although it seems the other party has taken the content offline, I later learned that the senior executives at the competing outlet and our own senior executives have a very close relationship. On top of that, our executive seems to hold an unusual position within the organization, and after the scandal came to light, they repeatedly reminded everyone—without growing tired of it—that no matter what, the big boss would choose to support this good brother of theirs!

What else can I say?

Although many people look down on media work, I genuinely like my job. But here, I only feel that my dignity is being trampled on. If you want to work here, you’d better first abandon ordinary people’s moral standards and the basic principles of how to conduct yourself and do things.

“Insiders” can do whatever they want (everyone in the company tacitly understands this).

The company supervisor’s mood is unpredictable. Once the honeymoon period ends and they start picking on you, it means you have been excluded from the list of “insiders.”

This place is privately referred to as a “temporary job,” and is definitely not somewhere to settle down for the long term. Because there have been quite a few precedents of people being “picked on,” after seeing this happen repeatedly, everyone usually explores other job opportunities. If a match works out, many people make the decision to leave immediately. As a result, people often leave the company early to avoid stewing in resentment later.

The professional judgment and instructions of the company’s senior management are “very strange.” Many people can sense this; it is best to simply keep it to yourself.

1. The pomelo oranges are delicious, and they're free within a certain allowance.

2. If you have to work on holidays, you can work remotely from home.

Shift scheduling and rotating shifts:

Regardless of whether it is a weekday or holiday, you have to rotate between day and night shifts, and the schedule is not fixed. Regular overtime without overtime pay is common, with an average workday of 11 hours being typical. When there is major news, working more than 12 hours is also perfectly normal. Whether it is early morning or late at night, and regardless of whether you are on duty, you may be required to come in early or get back up and continue working after you have already gone home.

Emotional management at the mid-to-senior level:

I had already heard about the emotional-management problems before joining. From low traffic to typos and incorrect punctuation, you could be cursed out so thoroughly that you would feel sorry to your ancestors. Being yelled at in online group chats with multiple people or being berated at the company is nothing unusual, although at least I have not seen any violent incidents.

News content prioritizes traffic above all else:

Clickbait, content-farm-style headlines are frequently used, and unreliable sources such as Dcard, PTT, Apple Daily, or even rumors circulating in LINE groups are casually cited. Photos are also reposted without much care, only to be hastily taken down when the original creator comes forward to complain. Because editors have to produce a large number of articles in a short time, the news content is shallow and cannot become high-quality, well-rounded, objective reporting. Only occasional special features allow editors to demonstrate their abilities. The enormous pressure from traffic and article-volume targets means editors spend every day reporting on busty women, political gossip, celebrity scandals, and horoscopes. Meanwhile, the political sensitivity of upper and middle management's decisions is astonishingly low.

Severe staff shortages:

Compared with other media outlets, the work is chaotic and covers almost everything. You may be pulled into helping with tasks outside your job scope, but you will still be harshly scolded if you make a mistake while doing work that is not your responsibility. Also, regardless of how long you have been with the company, you will almost never receive a raise after joining, and when you do, the increase is pitifully small.

The company is unwilling to improve its policies:

The above problems have been raised by more than one person, more than once. However, senior management not only refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing and remains stubbornly set in its ways, but also has no intention of improving. People who make suggestions instead risk being singled out and forced out.

If you do not care at all about emotional bombardment in the workplace, do not mind working overtime, and do not care that you will be instructed to write news designed to cause chaos or use content-farm headlines, nor about political correctness, it is a good place to hone your skills—you can practice working calmly and unflappably.

None

Echoing what the previous comments said about the manager only seeking out female colleagues: the manager often uses emotional blackmail and plays petty tricks, acting one way in public and another behind people's backs. They are skilled at sowing discord among colleagues, cannot stand seeing team members getting along well, think they are the only one who is capable, fail to recognize employees' strengths, and only keep asking employees to give more.

None

Even though I was invited to interview, the other side acted as if I were the one looking for a job and had to submit to their interrogation,呵呵

I won’t mention which department; in any case, it was only created recently—a department born out of disdain for real-time news.

The interviewer hadn’t read my résumé? Okay, and then adopted such a haughty attitude, as if interrogating a prisoner.

They completely failed to make me feel that I had actually been invited.

You might think you were invited because your work experience interested them and they thought you met the requirements.

No—they actually didn’t think that at all.

Their words conveyed no sense of trust in you or of your suitability.

If you’re going to be this disrespectful to people, that’s fine.

I wish you could never establish your new department or find enough people to staff it.

Orange's restaurant is pretty good—cheap and tasty.

The news doesn't have much substance, leaving very little room for development.

It is said that a male manager in a certain department who only looks for women during interviews often deliberately makes physical contact in the office, causing dissatisfaction among multiple female employees.

You get to share the benefits of the Orange Group, and at the year-end banquet you might win a dream prize worth several hundred thousand.

The entertainment and editorial content on the online news site is an absolute dumpster fire—so trashy it’s hard to tell whether you’re reading a news report or an X-rated website. They also frequently just copy entire videos from elsewhere, slap on their LOGO and a bit of text, and call it their own. Truly a bizarre content farm.

The direction of policy is the concern; long-term readers continue to leave, while those at the top only need to review the frontline staff.

1 Many senior and mid-level managers have not covered the routes within the areas they lead. They have poor news sense and, because they cannot identify the key points, frequently pressure everyone to “follow the trend” of other media outlets. The articles they promote often leave peers and readers astonished.

2 Senior and mid-level managers seem to prioritize cultivating relationships through public-relations conversations. They place importance on everyday clothing and appearance and on socializing and entertaining with investors, making the organization seem more like a PR company. News policies are frequently mishandled.

3 The senior and mid-level managers appear to have serious problems with emotional management, as everyone in the company knows.

The company is fairly free; under the blessing of the Oranges, you can be a pseudo-Orange person XD

The following is all hearsay ~~ Please verify it yourself.

1. News Department: Except for News Division 1, the quality of the others is extremely poor, especially the so-called editor-in-chief. It is considered the most old-fashioned media outlet in the industry, and is a good place to learn how to shirk responsibility.

2. Sales Department: This is also one of the few departments in this circle that does not understand advertising. It is also often said that the sales managers are incompetent, but their ability to eat and drink is exceptionally strong!

3. R&D Department: The technical manager cannot write code and has no IT knowledge whatsoever. They are very pliable... so pliable that the technical department seems like an outsourced unit XD. The head of technology came from “Meilian X”; I heard they left because they had caused all of the company's systems to crash. (Please verify this yourself by interviewing at “Meilian X”.) ~ Drop-dead

Supervisors rarely review articles; they let junior staff publish them directly. If there are errors or they are dissatisfied, they harshly berate their subordinates, while responsibility is placed on the junior staff.

The company’s upper management has questionable hiring practices. Many mid- and senior-level employees are neither professionals nor experienced in their fields, and their understanding and instructions are frequently wrong, sometimes absurd.

Everyone has noticed that the problem lies with upper management, but because mid- and senior-level managers often order around and punish subordinates through "rage or emotional outbursts," no one is willing to speak up.

The mid- and senior-level managers’ judgment in selecting and recommending articles is "very strange," resulting in stagnant traffic on the main website and readers leaving for external sites.

In the end, they always find junior staff to use as scapegoats and claim that they "will continue to comprehensively overhaul the junior staff" to answer to those above them. Be mentally prepared.

Basically, there are none, because management thinks their subordinates have plenty of free time, so they keep asking for this and that......

To be honest, the middle and upper management are terrible.

It is obvious that every day they are "observing and copying" the practices and perspectives of various media outlets. They have no ideas of their own, like a counterfeit product that cannot develop its own style.

The unfortunate thing is that subordinates work themselves to death, and there still will not be a good outcome.

Management is only responsible for reviewing (examining and criticizing) and editing reporters’ work.

Senior management imitates (or plagiarizes) the styles of other media outlets far too aggressively, lacks an original central concept, and questions subordinate editors and reporters about why their articles and perspectives do not follow those of many other media outlets. At first glance, the website looks like a hodgepodge.

Mid- and senior-level managers do not publish articles; they spend almost all their working hours “criticizing subordinates” or forcing them to work at all times. Over time, they resemble cruel prison guards abusing inmates, while having no substantive personal productivity.

The supervisor does not write commentary columns; work is passed down, which is different from ordinary media outlets.

Senior management places great importance on click-through rates, and the editorial direction favors popular, prurient, and sensational content. Professional readers have probably already left, and article click-through rates are becoming increasingly polarized.

There is a large department where staff are not assigned reporting beats; they specialize in rewriting drafts indoors.

Senior management’s style is summed up as “the phoenix will never come here; the subordinates are all chickens”: orders are issued in a concentration-camp-like manner, and if editors and reporters leave, they will simply find replacements.

Backed by the Orange Group, with decent benefits and an inexpensive employee cafeteria. The office environment is acceptable.

Senior management lives in a world of its own and is completely out of touch with the industry@@Their vision and perspective are frighteningly narrow (the technical side is also incredibly “interesting”... If you’re interested, remember to ask people inside about the actual situation first. By no means assume it is an “ordinary” new media company.)

The most “special” thing is that, because the editorial leadership has limited digital knowledge and connections and has nothing with which to command respect, it can only manage through “instruction-based” and authoritarian methods. People are constantly questioned or scolded, and the atmosphere in the company is extremely oppressive......... Aside from reporters, who can go out and get some air while working in the field, junior managers and editors who have to stay in the office are all very afraid of someone.......

In short, for anyone who wants to enter “new media” or “online media,” applying for an external, field-based position is probably OK, but if you’re applying for an internal position, you really need to think twice.........

The company often appoints people unfamiliar with the industry to management positions, which helps inflate their credentials.

The management is mediocre, and almost always follows and copies competitors’ practices. It hires people from similar backgrounds, adopts high-pressure, exploitative management, and often uses the “stick” approach with subordinates. The boss’s ability to recognize talent seems limited.

You can write news as strange stories, interesting tidbits, or using variety-show techniques.

Senior management cares greatly about individual click-through rates. You need to be able to adapt to a news-writing style with headlines like “Everyone was stunned,” “Everyone was dumbfounded,” or “Everyone completely broke down.”

The exterior of the office building is fine.

Some senior managers are very disrespectful toward people,

frequently losing their temper, aggressively questioning and criticizing them,

with a tone and attitude that clearly treats people like idiots and freeloaders,

while disregarding workloads and constantly assigning tasks with urgent deadlines,

causing some employees to work themselves to the bone and feel exploited. They are also humiliated, and are gradually leaving this subsidiary of the Gamania Group.

The parent company, Gamania Group, across the street has an employee cafeteria that you can go to, allowing you to temporarily get away from the high-pressure office environment where senior executives berate their subordinates.

Members of the sales department have to shoulder “individual performance,” while editors and reporters have to shoulder “individual click-through rates.”

Sales staff receive increasingly higher salaries (bonuses) along with their “individual performance”; some even earn more per month than senior executives.

However, editors’ and reporters’ salaries do not increase proportionally, yet they have to shoulder “individual click-through rates.” The figures reset every week and are reviewed again, so you should be mentally prepared.

The editorial department has “per-article” click-through-rate bonuses, but the targets are set at astronomical levels and are difficult to reach under normal circumstances. The amounts are also very small, and unlike in the sales department, individual salaries will not exceed those of senior executives.

The staff are almost all quite young, with few experienced employees (not sure why they didn't stay).

The office is filled with the sound of supervisors harshly berating subordinates and slamming their desks,

making the work atmosphere feel very strange and creating a sense of being enslaved.

Senior management has heard about it and seems to tacitly approve of this method of managing people.

After some employees clocked out, they were still required to continue working at night, but were not paid overtime.

Loose management; the company's overall direction changes constantly, so you are often suddenly told to stop halfway through a task. Over time, you come to realize that you don't need to do anything—whatever you do might just be canceled tomorrow anyway. Perfect for people who like slacking off; you'll have a great time, like a fish in water.

Anything not mentioned under the advantages is a disadvantage. Simply put, after joining this company, your life from then on will truly be a mixture of joy and worry.

As far as media companies go, it should be one of the most relaxed. As long as you can write, you can get in.

Working hours are very flexible, and your manager generally won’t monitor you too closely.

The company’s senior management has no clear direction for running the business.

They only carried out a major expansion at the beginning of 2017, but by August they had laid off most of the company’s reporters.

They kept only editors, who were responsible for copying news from other outlets to maintain the website’s content.

I strongly advise against working there. You might suddenly be laid off one day without even knowing it.

A very challenging company that had just undertaken a major hiring expansion and is now immediately starting layoffs.

A media job that only requires knowing how to spot typos and being willing to wear a uniform; you have to constantly remind yourself, otherwise it’s very easy to become lazy.

Eating, drinking, and having fun

Loves watching but doesn't seriously reflect

The sense of unity here is the strongest I’ve experienced at any company I’ve worked for. Everyone organizes and manages themselves, and we clock in online, so there’s no need to rush like crazy to catch a train or bus. Even the seven days of leave that were cut this year are still being granted here—truly generous. There’s also a monthly birthday celebration, a day when everyone gets to feast (last time we had huge chicken cutlets, haha).

It’s a company where everyone feels like family.

Thinking about it... there really don’t seem to be any.

Good company benefits, flexible working hours, friendly managers, high employee autonomy, and a clear company vision

A bit far from the MRT station

This company has major problems starting from the top. Management positions keep changing, and each change is stranger than the last. There is no protection for employees.