Wang Shaw-lan, the UDN publisher, was on a Taiwan delegation to the Vatican received by Pope Benedict on Dec. 12. She was shown in a photograph provided by the official Central News Agency.

A letter to the editor told the UDN that the picture had been published with Wang Shaw-lan missing on Page D 10 of the Liberty Times on Dec. 17.

The UDN quoted a Liberty Times reporter saying she edited out Wang Shaw-lan because she thought the picture too large and needed to cut and fuse it.

Chang Ning-hsing, the reporter, added Wang was not the delegation leader and it wouldn’t matter if the publisher of a rival paper was missing.

Shown in the picture is Francis Chen, chairman of Franz Collection Inc.

Chen told the UDN that Chang had asked for a photo that didn’t show Wang Shaw-lan, but there weren’t any.

The Franz Collection chairman said he was shocked to find the Liberty Times published an edited picture a couple of days after its reporter had made the request.

“It’s a violation of the journalistic ethics,” the UDN charged.

The Liberty Times said the picture was actually provided by Franz Collection.

“Our reporter did ask for a picture without Wang Shaw-lan,” said Teng Wei-wei, deputy managing editor of the Liberty Times.

The picture the Liberty Times published was the one Franz Collection supplied, Teng pointed out.