The Epoch Times

The Epoch Times is a far-right[12] international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement, based in Midtown Manhattan.[17] The newspaper is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television.[18] The Epoch Times has websites accessible from 35 countries[19] but is blocked in mainland China.[19] In 2020, the New York Times called it a "giant influence machine".[20]

Not to be confused with Unix time also called epoch time.

The Epoch Times
Truth and Tradition
Front page of The Epoch Times New York edition for March 18, 2016
TypeInternational newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Epoch Media Group
Founder(s)John Tang
PublisherEpoch Media Group
FoundedMay 20, 2000 (2000-05-20)
LanguageMultiple, mainly Chinese and English
Headquarters229 W. 28th St.
New York, NY 10001
U.S.
Websitewww.theepochtimes.com
The Epoch Times
Traditional Chinese大紀元時報
Simplified Chinese大纪元时报

The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party,[21] promotes far-right politicians in Europe,[3][5] and has backed President Donald Trump in the U.S.;[20] a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign.[18][22][23] The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation.[18][24][25] The organization frequently promotes other Falun Gong affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun.[14][20]

History

The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by John Tang and other Chinese Americans affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement.[26] Tang was a graduate student in Georgia at the time; he began the newspaper in his basement.[20] The founders said they were responding to censorship inside China and a lack of international understanding about the Chinese government's repression of Falun Gong.[27][28] In May 2000, the paper was first published in the Chinese language in New York, with the web launch in August 2000.[29]

By 2003, The Epoch Times website and group of newspapers had grown into one of the largest Chinese-language news sites and newspaper groups outside China, with local editions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and major Western European countries.[30] The first English edition launched online in 2003, followed by the New York print edition in 2004.[29]

The newspaper sources its journalists from staff living in the West.[31][32][33]

In a 2018 report, conservative think-tank the Hoover Institution commented that "the space for truly independent Chinese-language media in the United States has shrunk to a few media outlets supported by the adherents of Falun Gong, the banned religious sect in China, and a small publication and website called Vision Times", the report noting that the latter is also associated with Falun Gong.[34] Similarly, in a 2019 report, Reporters Without Borders commented that "Aside from the Epoch Times newspaper and New Tang Dynasty Television, which are run by the Falun Gong, a religious movement persecuted in China, and China Digital Times, a website founded by a leading US-based critic of the regime, the United States now has few truly independent diaspora media."[35]

Finances

According to NBC News, "little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times," and it is loosely organized into several regional tax free non-profits, under the umbrella of the Epoch Media Group, together with New Tang Dynasty Television.[18][20]

The newspaper's revenue has increased rapidly in recent years, from $3.8 million in 2016 to $8.1 million in 2017 (with spending of $7.2 million), $12.4 million in 2018[36] and $15.5 million in 2019.[37][38] Tax documents of the Epoch Media Group indicated that between 2012 and 2016, the group received $900,000 from a principal at Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund led by the conservative political donor Robert Mercer.[39] Chris Kitze, a former NBC executive and creator of the fake news website Before It's News who also manages a cryptocurrency hedge fund, joined the paper's board as vice president in 2017.[36]

A 2020 report in The New York Times called The Epoch Times' recent wealth "something of a mystery." Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News who produced a documentary with NTD, said "I'd give them a number" on a project budget and "they'd come back and say, 'We're good for that number.'" Former employees say they were told The Epoch Times is financed by subscriptions, ads and donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners.[20]

Distribution
ÉpoqueTimes office in Montreal's Chinatown in 2015

The Epoch Times says it hosts websites in 21 languages and 35 countries, and has print editions in eight languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian.[19]

In April 2019, videos and ads from the Epoch Media Group including The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty (NTD) totaled 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, according to the analytics company Tubular. That ranked it 11th among all video creators, and ahead of any other traditional news publisher, according to NBC News.[18]

Censorship

In some cases The Epoch Times operates in a hostile overseas environment, in which "overseas Chinese media companies choosing to remain independent or publish non-approved content become the targets of an aggressive campaign of elimination or control."[40] In one instance, Chinese diplomatic officials made threats against media for reporting Falun Gong-related content; in other cases, advertisers and distributors have been threatened not to support The Epoch Times. Communist Party authorities have been accused of resorting to "militant methods" against the newspaper and its staff, including attacking staff and destroying computer equipment.[40]

In 2006, the International Federation of Journalists criticized what it called a "dirty war" against The Epoch Times, citing incidents such as The Epoch Times's Hong Kong printing plant being broken into and damaged by unidentified men, and Epoch's offices in Sydney and Toronto receiving suspicious mail envelopes suspected of containing toxic materials. The IFJ also noted incidences of Epoch Times staff and advertisers being intimidated, and newspapers being confiscated, in what it characterized as "a vicious witch-hunt aimed at crushing the voice of dissent."[41]

The newspaper was briefly banned from Malaysia after coming under reported pressure by the Chinese Communist Party.[42]

In 2016, the newspaper was removed from the pharmacy of Australian National University, after the president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association confronted the pharmacist and threw out the papers. The incident drew national media coverage over questions of Chinese government sponsored overseas student organizations.[43][44]

In November 2019, Reporters Without Borders called on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to protect press freedoms after The Epoch Times said four masked arsonists with batons had damaged its printing press.[45] Additionally, in a 2019 report, Reporters Without Borders said that The Epoch Times' chief technical officer, Li Yuan, was assaulted in his Atlanta, Georgia, home on February 8, 2006, by "suspected Chinese government agents" who took his two laptops.[35]

Relationship to Falun Gong

In 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "three new U.S.-based, Chinese-language media outlets that provide provocative reporting about the Communist Party, government oppression and social unrest in China (namely The Epoch Times, Sound of Hope, and NTDTV) have ties to the Falun Gong spiritual movement." When interviewed, executives at each outlet claimed they did not represent the Falun Gong movement as a whole.[21]

Associated Press reporter Nahal Toosi wrote in 2006 that it is "technically inaccurate" to say that Falun Gong owns The Epoch Times, although many of the newspaper's staffers are Falun Gong practitioners.[46] Toosi noted "many observers" have said Falun Gong uses the newspaper for its public relations campaigns, and the paper is connected with the group and carries sympathetic coverage of it.[46][47][48][42][49]

The English Epoch Times chair Stephen Gregory denied in 2006 that Epoch Times is directly connected to Falun Gong.[46] Independent reporters in the US repeatedly confirm the connection.[18][20]

In 2003 sociologist Yuezhi Zhao wrote that the paper "displays an indisputable ideological and organizational affinity with Falun Gong" and that it strongly emphasizes negative portrayals of the Chinese government and positive portrayals of Falun Gong. Per Zhao, Epoch portrays itself as neutral, independent, and public-interest oriented.[30]

Nick Couldry and James Curran wrote in 2003 that the paper represents a "major step in the evolution of Falun Gong-related alternative media", and may be part of a de facto media alliance with democracy activists in exile.[50]

Canadian scholar Clement Tong wrote[47][51][52][53][54] The Epoch Times "operates as a mouthpiece for" Falun Gong without an official statement of affiliation with the movement.[52]

In 2008, David Ownby, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal and the author of Falun Gong and the Future of China, said the newspaper is set up by Falun Gong practitioners with their own money.[55] He described The Epoch Times as wishing to be taken seriously as a global newspaper rather than being judged on the basis of its strong association with Falun Gong.[55][56] He wrote: "Epoch Times is a newspaper with a mission, that of reporting on issues bearing on human rights throughout the world, which allows for considerable focus on China and Falun Gong."[57]

In 2009, Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, appeared at the newspaper's headquarters in Manhattan and called for the expansion of The Epoch Times to "become regular media."[18] Li has referred to The Epoch Times as "our media", along with the NTD digital production company and the Shen Yun dance troupe.[18][58] Two former employees said that top editors traveled to meet with Li at Falun Gong's compound, Dragon Springs, where Li weighed in on editorial and strategic decisions; The Epoch Times denied that a meeting took place.[20]

Former employees of The Epoch Times have noted the involvement of Falun Gong practitioners in the management and editorial process.[18] Three anonymous former employees said Epoch Times workers were encouraged to attend weekly "Fa study" sessions outside work hours to study the teachings of Li Hongzhi.[59] Former employees have said that speaking negatively about The Epoch Times amounts to disobeying Li.[20]

The Epoch Times runs frequent promotional stories about the Shen Yun dance troupe that is affiliated with Falun Gong. The New Yorker's review of Shen Yun called The Epoch Times "the world's foremost purveyor of Shen Yun content."[60]

In 2019, an NBC News investigative report suggested The Epoch Times's political coverage may be affected by Falun Gong believers' anticipation of a judgment day in which communists are sent to hell, and Falun Gong's allies are spared. Former Epoch Times employees told NBC News that President Donald Trump is viewed as a key anti-communist ally,[18] allegedly hastening that judgment day.[61]

In 2020, Vox identified China Uncensored, along with NTD as affiliates of Epoch Times, as part of a multilingual "media empire".[62]

Notable coverage

The paper carried an interview with outspoken Canadian Conservative Member of Parliament Rob Anders, wherein Anders alleged that the Chinese government used gifts and business deals in attempts to influence Canadian political decisions.[63][64]

Editorial stance

The Epoch Times is an ardent opponent of the Chinese Communist Party.[18] Since a shift in the newspaper's approach in 2016, the newspaper received significant attention for its favorable coverage of the Trump administration,[18][22] the German far-right,[3][65] and the French far-right.[5]

The Epoch Times "generally stayed out of U.S. politics" before 2016, "unless they dovetailed with Chinese interests," according to a report by NBC News. Ben Hurley, a former Epoch Times employee until 2013, stated that the newspaper was critical toward abortion and LGBT and that Falun Gong practitioners "saw communism everywhere" including in internationalist figures like Hillary Clinton and Kofi Annan, "but there was more room for disagreements in the early days." Since 2016, according to NBC News, The Epoch Times has promoted favorable coverage of Trump's campaign and presidency, and emphasized issues such as Islamic terrorism and illegal immigration to the United States. It has also emphasized "what the publication claims is a labyrinthian, global conspiracy led by [Hillary] Clinton and former President Barack Obama to tear down Trump."[18]

A former Epoch Times reporter who covered the 2016 campaign, Steve Klett, said his editors had encouraged favorable coverage of Trump after he won the Republican nomination, and that "they seemed to have this almost messianic way of viewing Trump as the anti-Communist leader who would bring about the end of the Chinese Communist Party."[20] After Trump was elected, The Epoch Times hired Brendan Steinhauser, a Tea Party strategist, to reach out to more conservatives and encourage the Trump administration to oppose the persecution of Falun Gong.[20]

The Epoch Times picks up mainstream newswire stories and in some places can resemble a community newspaper.[66] According to sociologist Yuezhi Zhao, "While mainstream newspapers typically treat Web versions as an extension of the already-existing print version, The Epoch Times website serves as the master for all its worldwide papers."[30]

The Epoch Times is known for alleging conspiracies involving former Communist Party general secretary Jiang Zemin,[67] under whose administration Falun Gong was suppressed in China.

The newspaper is at odds with the Taiwanese-owned and U.S.-based Chinese language newspaper World Journal, accusing it of being a "megaphone for the evil Chinese Communist Party."[67]

In September 2017, The German edition of the newspaper, The Epoch Times Deutschland, which became Web-only in 2012, was described by online magazine The China File as being aligned with the German far-right, and attractive to supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the anti-immigrant group Pegida.[3] Stefanie Albrecht, a reporter for the German broadcaster RTL who spent several days inside the Berlin office of The Epoch Times while investigating the far right, said that The Epoch Times staffers she met had no journalistic training and did not check facts, trusting instead in the alternative sources they consulted.[5]

In France, The Epoch Times gives "an unfettered platform to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the patriarch of the French far right, and his daughter, Marine, who leads the nationalist party her father founded," according to The New Republic.[5]

Editorials

Nine commentaries on the Communist Party

In November 2004, the Chinese version of The Epoch Times published a series of editorials titled "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party." The editorials argued that China would not be free or prosperous until it was rid of the party, which it said was at odds with China's cultural and spiritual values.[68]

Millions of copies of the articles circulated in China through e-mails, faxes, and underground printing houses, according to a guest opinion article in The Christian Science Monitor by Caylan Ford, a former staff writer for The Epoch Times. Ford wrote that the campaign differed from the 1989 and 2008 democracy movements in China by drawing on Buddhist and Daoist spirituality.[68]

In 2005, organizers of an associated campaign urging people to quit the Chinese Communist Party said that more than 2 million people had resigned.[69]

A report by the OpenNet Initiative said that 90% of websites mentioning the phrase "Nine Commentaries" were blocked in mainland China as of 2005.[70][71]

In 2012, a former People's Liberation Army air force officer testified to the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China that he had been sentenced to four years of prison for distributing a "Nine Commentaries" DVD in Beijing.[72]

The "Tuidang" movement to quit the Chinese Communist Party was selected as the one of the top global events in 2011 by Russian economist Andrey Illarionov, who cited claims by The Epoch Times that over 100 million people had quit.[73]

According to China scholar David Ownby, the Nine Commentaries are a "condemnation of communism and a direct indictment of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party's rule in China." While acknowledging the "unnecessary violence" the Chinese Communist Party has inflicted, Ownby finds that the lack of balance and nuance in tone and style makes the editorials resemble "anti-Communist propaganda written in Taiwan in the 1950s."[57]

Controversies
Woman at Million MAGA March on November 14, 2020 in Washington, D.C., distributing copies of The Epoch Times featuring a headline that quotes Donald Trump's disputed claim about the results of the 2020 United States presidential election.

Pro-Trump conspiracy theories and disinformation

The Epoch Times has promoted an array of pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theories[74][75] and became one of Trump's closest media allies and defenders.[75][22] The paper financially benefited from its promotion of Trump conspiracies, increasing its revenue nearly fourfold during the first three years of Trump's administration (from $3.9 million in 2016 to $15.5 million in 2019) as it catered to Trump's most ardent supporters, to whom the paper marketed itself via targeted social media advertising.[76] The publication championed Trump's Spygate conspiracy theory in its news coverage and advertising, and the Epoch Media Group's Edge of Wonder videos on YouTube have spread the far-right, pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory,[18] and embraced false "QAnon" claims.[77] An NBC News report found that two of Edge of Wonder's hosts have been a creative director and chief photo editor at The Epoch Times respectively. The newspaper promoted Edge of Wonder videos in dozens of Facebook posts through 2019.[18]

During the February 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, The Epoch Times shared viral disinformation from the conservative group Judicial Watch that falsely alleged inflated voter rolls.[78] The claim, which went viral on Facebook, was debunked by fact checkers and the Iowa secretary of state.[79][80] A Harvard media expert quoted by NBC News said The Epoch Times employed a "classic disinformation tactic" known as "trading up the chain," in which false stories are repackaged and shared.[78]

After Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, The Epoch Times consistently sought to question the election results.[81] The organization produced a 93-minute video that falsely suggested widespread fraud in the counting; one interviewee, attorney Lin Wood, falsely alleged that China had bought an American election vendor.[82] Versions of the video on YouTube, the Epoch Times website and NTD were viewed hundreds of thousands of times.[82] After Trump's election loss, The Epoch Times created a network of seven new YouTube channels to pump out election disinformation and other false claims, including lies about the Nashville Christmas Day bombing.[75] Only one of the seven YouTube channels disclosed its ties to the Epoch Times or Falun Gong.[75] In the two and a half months after their creation, the disinformation channels garnered tens of millions of views and at least 1.1 million subscribers.[75] One of the channel ("Eye Opener With Michael Lewis") portrays itself as an independent effort by the host "and a few friends."[75] After the videos' false and misleading claims were reported on, YouTube removed several of the videos in accordance with the site's policy against election disinformation.[75]

The newspaper helped publicize the January 6, 2021 Trump rally in Washington. D.C. that led to the storming of the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob. Afterward, one of its columnists suggested that the riot was a "false flag" operation,[81] and Michael Lewis's Epoch Times-linked YouTube channel echoes the same lie, suggesting that the Capitol attack was orchestrated by "antifa" as part of an "old Communist tactic."[75]

White House protocol controversies

In September 2018, The Epoch Times photographer Samira Bouaou broke White House protocol and handed Trump a folder during an official event.[83]

On August 13, 2020, The White House invited reporters from The Epoch Times and the right-wing news outlet Gateway Pundit to a press briefing. According to a report by The Washington Post, the "Gateway Pundit and Epoch Times both jumped the line with the White House's blessing starting on Thursday", prompting objections from the president of the White House Correspondents' Association.[84][85]

Ads banned by Facebook

The Epoch Media Group spent $11 million on Facebook ads in 2019,[81] including, over a six-month period in 2019, more than $1.5 million on about 11,000 pro-Trump Facebook advertisements purchased by The Epoch Times.[18][23][81] According to publicly-available Facebook ad data reported on by NBC News, theEpoch Times spent more on pro-Trump ads than any other group except the Trump campaign itself.[18][23] Political ad spending on Facebook in April 2019 through an account called "Coverage of the Trump Presidency by The Epoch Times" exceeded any politician's spending except Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.[86] Journalist Judd Legum wrote in May 2019 that The Epoch Times ads were "boosting Donald Trump and floating conspiracy theories about Joe Biden."[86]

In August 2019, Facebook banned The Epoch Times from advertising on its platform, after finding that the newspaper broke Facebook's political transparency rules by publishing pro-Trump subscription ads through sockpuppet pages such as "Honest Paper" and "Pure American Journalism."[61][25] A Facebook representative told NBC: "Over the past year we removed accounts associated with The Epoch Times for violating our ad policies, including trying to get around our review systems."[61]

The Epoch Times publisher, Stephen Gregory, wrote in response that the paper did not intend to violate Facebook's rules and that its video ads were advertisements for subscriptions to the newspaper.[61]

As Facebook banned it from advertising, the newspaper shifted its spending to YouTube, where it has spent more than $1.8 million on ads, some promoting conspiracy theories, since May 2018.[59][20]

YouTube demonetization

The Epoch Times reported on February 4, 2021 that YouTube had started preventing them from running ads on their YouTube videos.[87]

Removal of The BL (The Beauty of Life) from Facebook

In October 2019, the fact-checking website Snopes reported that The Epoch Times is closely linked to a large network of Facebook pages and groups called The BL (The Beauty of Life) that shares pro-Trump views and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. The BL has spent at least $510,698 on Facebook advertising. Hundreds of the ads were removed for violations of Facebook's advertising rules. The BL network of pages has 28 million followers on Facebook in total, according to Snopes. The editor-in-chief of The BL recently worked as editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times, and several other BL employees are listed as current or former employees of The Epoch Times. The BL is registered in Middletown, New York, to an address that also is registered to Falun Gong's Sound of Hope Radio Network and is associated with the YouTube series Beyond Science, but Snopes found "the outlet as a whole is literally the English-language edition of Epoch Times Vietnam."[88][89] Snopes found that The BL uses more than 300 fake Facebook profiles based in Vietnam and other countries, using names, stock photos and celebrity photos in their profiles to emulate Americans, to administer more than 150 pro-Trump Facebook groups amplifying its content.[89][90]

The Epoch Times and The BL denied being affiliated with each other, although the latter acknowledged that a "few of our staff" previously worked for The Epoch Times.[88]

In December 2019, Facebook announced it removed a large network of accounts, pages, and groups linked to The BL and Epoch Media Group for coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign actor. The network had 55 million followers on Facebook and Instagram, and $9.5 million had been spent on Facebook ads through its accounts.[91]

The New York Times reported that The BL had used fake profile photos generated by artificial intelligence. The Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab director Graham Brookie said the coordinated network of fake accounts demonstrated "an eerie, tech-enabled future of disinformation." Facebook's head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said, "What's new here is that this is purportedly a U.S.-based media company leveraging foreign actors posing as Americans to push political content. We've seen it a lot with state actors in the past."[92][74]

COVID-19 coverage and misinformation

The Epoch Times has spread misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic in print and via social media including Facebook and YouTube.[93][94] It has promoted anti-China rhetoric and conspiracy theories around the coronavirus outbreak, for example through an 8-page special edition called "How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World", which was distributed unsolicited in April 2020 to mail customers in areas of the United States, Canada, and Australia.[95][96] In the newspaper, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is known as the "CCP virus", and a commentary in the newspaper posed the question, "is the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan an accident occasioned by weaponizing the virus at that [Wuhan P4 virology] lab?"[93][95] The paper's editorial board also claimed that COVID-19 patients can potentially be cured by "condemning the CCP."[36]

The misinformation tracker NewsGuard called the French page of The Epoch Times one of the "super-spreaders" of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook, citing an Epoch Times article that suggested the virus was artificially created.[97][98] NewsGuard later changed the rating of the English edition of The Epoch Times from green to red.[19]

A story in The Epoch Times on February 17, 2020, shared a map from the internet that falsely alleged massive sulfur dioxide releases from crematoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic in China, speculating that 14,000 bodies may have been burned.[99] A fact check by AFP reported that the map was a NASA forecast taken out of context.[99]

A widely viewed video released by The Epoch Times on April 7, 2020, was flagged by Facebook as "partly false" for "the unsupported hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioengineered virus released from a Wuhan research laboratory." The video featured Judy Mikovits, an anti-vaccination activist.[100][101] The fact-checker Health Feedback said of the video that "several of its core scientific claims are false and its facts, even when accurate, are often presented in a misleading way."[94]

A story by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on April 29, 2020, reported that some Canadians were upset to receive a special edition of The Epoch Times that called COVID-19 the "CCP virus". Later the CBC retracted a headline on its story that had quoted a recipient saying the special edition was "racist and inflammatory", and the CBC also retracted a claim that The Epoch Times edition had concluded that COVID-19 was a bioweapon.[95][102] Opinion columns published by conservative tabloid The Toronto Sun accused the CBC of bias against The Epoch Times[103][104] and said the CBC's report may have misled readers into thinking The Epoch Times was spreading anti-Asian sentiment.[104]

Removal of TruthMedia from Facebook

On August 6, 2020, Facebook removed hundreds of fake accounts by a digital company called TruthMedia that promoted Epoch Times and NTD content and pro-Trump conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protests in the United States.[105][106] The operation included 303 Facebook accounts, 181 pages, 44 Facebook groups and 31 Instagram accounts,[107] which in total were followed by more than 2 million people.[106] Snopes and NBC News reported that TruthMedia had ties to the Epoch Media Group,[108][106] but Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, denied this.[106]

TruthMedia, now banned from Facebook, continues to operate YouTube channels in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Vietnamese, and has accounts on Pinterest and Twitter.[105] It appears to have begun a petition to the White House to “start calling the novel coronavirus the CCP virus.”[106][105]

Assessments

Ming Xia, a political science professor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, wrote in 2007 that The Epoch Times represents part of Falun Gong's strategic effort to expand to non-practitioners, and "embed itself into the large civil society for influence and legitimacy."[109] In 2018 he described The Epoch Times staff as largely part-time and volunteer, and said they "do not follow the protocols professional journalists abide by."[83]

The misinformation tracker NewsGuard said The Epoch Times "fails to meet several basic standards of credibility and transparency."[19]

The Epoch Times has been criticized by some scholars for biases, particularly regarding the Chinese Communist Party and mainland China issues, as well as for being a "mouthpiece" of the Falun Gong movement.[47][51][53][48][42][49] James To, a New Zealand political scientist, described The Epoch Times as the "primary mouthpiece" of Falun Gong, writing that it "lacks credibility", despite the newspaper posing a "viable threat to the CCP" by publishing articles about the party's negative aspects.[110] In his book Blocked on Weibo: What Gets Suppressed on China's Version of Twitter and Why, University of Toronto research fellow Jason Q. Ng referred to the paper's coverage of mainland China issues as "heavily biased against the Communist Party" and thus its reportage "should be viewed skeptically."[111]

A 2018 report by conservative think-tank the Hoover Institution called The Epoch Times one of the few independent Chinese-language media outlets in the United States not taken over by businessmen sympathetic to the Chinese government. The report also said that reports on China by The Epoch Times and other outlets affiliated with Falun Gong, which is banned from China, are "uneven."[34]

Seth Hettna wrote in The New Republic that The Epoch Times "has built a global propaganda machine, similar to Russia's Sputnik or RT, that pushes a mix of alternative facts and conspiracy theories that has won it far-right acolytes around the world."[5]

Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University called The Epoch Times "a known disinformation operation."[78]

James Bettinger, a professor of communications at Stanford University and the director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships, said "Even if Epoch Times is not associated with Falun Gong, if they consistently write about Falun Gong in the same perspective, or if there are no articles examining Falun Gong, people would perceive it as being not credible."[66] Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley, said in 2005 that "It's hard to vouch for their quality because it's difficult to corroborate, but it's not something to be dismissed as pure propaganda."[32]

In his 2008 book on Falun Gong, David Ownby wrote that The Epoch Times articles are "well written and interesting, if occasionally idiosyncratic in their coverage."[57][112][113] According to Ownby, the newspaper has been praised and also criticized for a perceived bias against the CCP, and support of Falun Gong practitioners and other dissidents such as Tibetans, Taiwanese independence advocates, democracy activists, Uyghurs and others. The paper, therefore, is often assessed in light of its connection to Falun Gong, rather than a thorough analysis of its editorial content.[114]

Jiao Guobiao, a former Beijing University journalism professor who was dismissed after criticizing the Propaganda Department, proposed that even if The Epoch Times published only negative information highly critical of the CCP, the weight of their attacks could never begin to counterbalance the positive propaganda the party publishes about itself. In addressing media balance, Jiao noted that the Chinese public lacked negative, critical information regarding their country. As such, he noted for a need of media balance based on the principles of freedom, equality, and legality, and that media balance "is the result of the collective imbalances of all."[51]

Haifeng Huang, professor of political science at the University of California, said, "I'm not exactly clear why they have become such a major pro-Trump voice" but "part of it is perhaps because they regard President Trump as tough on the Chinese government and therefore a natural ally for them."[59]

The web-only, German edition of the paper, Epoch Times Deutschland, has aligned with the anti-immigration far-right in Germany; the paper favorably comments on Alternative for Germany and Pegida while criticizing mainstream German media as not to be trusted.[3] Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian of Foreign Policy writes that "It’s not clear why the German website of a Falun Gong newspaper would choose to promote right-wing populism in Germany" but that the decision could be a business decision to drive an increase in views of the publication, or because such views reflect the teaching of Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi, "who believes that mixed-race children are 'pitiable' and 'physically and intellectually incomplete."[3] A German media report described the outlet as a "favorite" of Pegida supporters, along with Sputnik News and Kopp Report; and found that its articles which were critical of immigration have been shared almost daily.[65]

A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank, said the German edition of The Epoch Times "primarily runs anti-West, anti-American and pro-Kremlin content—a high proportion of this content is based on unverified information."[5][115]

In December 2019, the English Wikipedia deprecated the English and Chinese online versions of The Epoch Times as an "unreliable source" to use as a reference in Wikipedia, with editors describing it as "an advocacy group for the Falun Gong, and... a biased or opinionated source that frequently publishes conspiracy theories."[116]

References
  1. Kaiser, Jonas (2019). "In the heartland of climate scepticism: A hyperlink network analysis of German climate sceptics and the US right wing". In Forchtner, Bernard (ed.). The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. Routledge. p. 265. ISBN 978-1-351-10402-9.
  2. Weisskircher, Manès (September 11, 2020). "Neue Wahrheiten von rechts außen? Alternative Nachrichten und der "Rechtspopulismus" in Deutschland" [New truths from the far-right? Alternative news and "right-wing populism" in Germany]. Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen (in German). De Gruyter. 33 (2): 474–490. doi:10.1515/fjsb-2020-0040. S2CID 222004415. In Deutschland existiert eine Vielzahl an alternativen Nachrichten-Plattformen von Rechtsaußen. Der Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019 nennt Junge Freiheit, Compact online, PI News und Epoch Times als Plattformen mit der häufigsten Nutzung (Newman 2019: 86). [In Germany there is a large number of alternative news platforms from the far-right. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019 names Junge Freiheit, Compact online, PI News and Epoch Times as the platforms with the most frequent use (Newman 2019: 86).]
  3. Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (September 23, 2017). "The German Edition of Falun Gong's 'Epoch Times' Aligns with the Far Right". ChinaFile. Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society. Archived from the original on October 28, 2017.
  4. Alba, Davey (May 9, 2020). "Virus Conspiracists Elevate a New Champion". The New York Times. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  5. Hettena, Seth (September 17, 2019). "The Obscure Newspaper Fueling the Far-Right in Europe". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  6. Aspinwall, Nick (November 2, 2020). "Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon Are Flooding the Zone With Hunter Biden Conspiracies". Foreign Policy. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  7. Farhi, Paul (August 20, 2020). "A 'loud mouth' writer says the White House broke its own briefing-room rules. So he did the same". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  8. Aspinwall, Nick (November 6, 2020). "As Taiwan Watches US Election, It May Need Time to Trust a Biden Administration". The Diplomat. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  9. Newton, Casey (May 12, 2020). "How the 'Plandemic' video hoax went viral". The Verge. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  10. Pressman, Aaron; Morris, David Z. (August 7, 2020). "This moon landing video is fake". Fortune. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  11. Sommer, Will (October 19, 2019). "Bannon Teams Up With Chinese Group That Thinks Trump Will Bring on End-Times". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  12. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
  13. Hobbs, Renee (2020). Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-71351-0. Retrieved November 6, 2020 – via Google Books.
  14. Tolentino, Jia (March 19, 2019). "Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  15. Morais, Betsy (June 23, 2010). "The Epoch Times doesn't like to brag". Politico.
  16. Lawrence, Susan V. (April 14, 2004). "Falun Gong Fields Media Weapons". Wall Street Journal.
  17. [13][14][15][16]
  18. Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins (August 20, 2019). "Trump, QAnon and an impending judgment day: Behind the Facebook-fueled rise of The Epoch Times". NBC News.
  19. "The Epoch Times" (PDF). NewsGuard. 2020.
  20. Roose, Kevin (October 24, 2020). "How The Epoch Times Created a Giant Influence Machine". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  21. Hua, Vanessa (December 18, 2005). "Dissident media linked to Falun Gong / Chinese-language print, broadcast outlets in U.S. are making waves". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 9, 2006.
  22. Brown, Hayes (October 23, 2018). "A Newspaper Banned In China Is Now One Of Trump's Biggest Defenders". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  23. Gilbert, Ben (August 21, 2019). "Aside from the Trump campaign itself, the biggest spender on pro-Trump Facebook ads is reportedly a secretive New York-based newspaper". Business Insider. Insider Inc. Archived from the original on August 21, 2019.
  24. Alba, Davey (August 23, 2019). "Facebook Bans Ads From The Epoch Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  25. Gartenberg, Chaim (August 23, 2019). "Epoch Times banned from advertising after sneaking pro-Trump propaganda onto Facebook". The Verge. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  26. ""The Epoch Times", Falun Gong, and Me". www.williamgairdner.ca.
  27. Thomas Lum (August 11, 2006). "China and Falun Gong" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2012.
  28. Ownby 2008, p. 223.
  29. "The Epoch Times – About Us" Archived November 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine theepochtimes.com access-date March 6, 2014
  30. Zhao, Yuezhi, "Falun Gong, Identity, and the Struggle over Meaning Inside and Outside China", pp. 209–223 in Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, edited by Nick Couldry and James Curran (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)
  31. Thomas Lum (August 11, 2006). "China and Falun Gong" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2012.
  32. Hua, Vanessa (December 18, 2005). "Dissident media linked to Falun Gong / Chinese-language print, broadcast outlets in U.S. are making waves". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 9, 2006.
  33. Schworm, Peter (December 3, 2007). "Chinese-American activists decry China's communism". The Boston Globe.
  34. "Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance" (PDF). Hoover Institution. November 29, 2018.
  35. "RSF Report: "China's Pursuit of a New World Media Order"". RSF.Reporters without Borders. March 25, 2019.
  36. Eli Clifton (May 26, 2020). "This NBC executive became a conspiracy king and a pro-Trump media boss". The Daily Beast.
  37. Markay, Lachlan (January 12, 2021). "Epoch Times nearly quadrupled revenue during the first three years of the Trump administration". Axios. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  38. "DocumentCloud". beta.documentcloud.org. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  39. Eli Clifton (May 5, 2020). "The Hedge Fund Man Behind Pro-Trump Media's New War on China". The Daily Beast.
  40. To, James Jiann Hua (2014). Qiaowu: Extra-Territorial Policies for the Overseas Chinese. Brill. pp. 179–180. ISBN 978-9004272286.
  41. "IFJ Condemns China's "Brutal Vendetta" Against Independent Newspaper". March 1, 2006.
  42. Sun, Wanning (2009). Media and the Chinese Diaspora: Community, Communications and Commerce. Routledge. p. xi. ISBN 978-1134263592. ...the Epoch Times – a globally circulated pro-Falun Gong, anti-Communist Chinese-language newspaper...
  43. Joske, Alexander; Wen, Philip (October 7, 2016). "The 'patriotic education' of Chinese students at Australian universities". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  44. "Canberra pharmacy at front line of China's push for global influence". Australian Financial Review. September 1, 2016. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  45. "Following the Epoch Times arson attack, RSF urges the Hong Kong government to address violence against the press". Reporters Without Borders. November 22, 2019. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  46. "Paper denies representing Falun Gong". Washington Post. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  47. Groot, Gerry; Stafford, Glen (2012). "China and South Australia". In John Spoehr; Purnendra Jain (eds.). The Engaging State: South Australia's Engagement with the Asia-Pacific Region. Wakefield Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-1743051573. In related vein, another paper with wide distribution but published elsewhere is The Epoch Times (Dajiyuan shibao), the qigong meditation religious group Falun gong mouth-piece, which runs a strong anti-communist line.
  48. Ellwood, Robert S.; Csikszentmihalyi, Mark A. (2007). "East Asian Religions". In Jacob Neusner (ed.). World Religions in America. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 217. ISBN 978-1611640472. ... the Epoch Times, an anticommunist newspaper connected with Falun Gong organization...
  49. Denton, Kirk A. (2011). "Yan'an as a Site of Memory". In Marc Andre Matten (ed.). Places of Memory in Modern China: History, Politics, and Identity. Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography. 5. Brill. p. 268. ISBN 978-9004219014. An article in the anti-Communist, Falun Gong Epoch Times claims, without citing any sources, that [Commumist soldier Zhang Side's] death was the result of an accident involving opium use.
  50. Couldry, Nick; Curran, James (2003). Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0742575202.
  51. Thornton, Patricia M. (2008). "Manufacturing Dissent in Transnational China". In Kevin J. O'Brien (ed.). Popular Protest in China. Harvard Contemporary China. 15. Harvard University Press. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-0674041585.
  52. Tong, Clement (2015). "Western Apocalyptic Narratives in the International Arena". In Jean-Guy A. Goulet; Liam D. Murphy; Anastasia Panagakos (eds.). Religious Diversity Today: Experiencing Religion in the Contemporary World. 3. ABC-CLIO. p. 71. ISBN 978-1440833328.
  53. James Jiann Hua To (2014). Qiaowu: Extra-Territorial Policies for the Overseas Chinese. Brill. p. 97. ISBN 978-9004272286.
  54. Noakes, Stephen (June 2010). "Falun Gong, Ten Years On". Pacific Affairs. 83 (2): 349–357. doi:10.5509/2010832349. The Epoch Times newspaper also serves as a mouthpiece for Falun Gong internationally...
  55. Ownby, David (2008). Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford University Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-0199716371.
  56. Ownby, David (2008). Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0199716371.
  57. Ownby 2008, p. 221.
  58. "Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference". www.falundafa.org. September 5, 2010. Retrieved August 15, 2020.
  59. Roose, Kevin (February 5, 2020). "Epoch Times, Punished by Facebook, Gets a New Megaphone on YouTube". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 6, 2020.
  60. Tolentino, Jia (March 19, 2019). "Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun". The New Yorker (Serial). ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  61. Zadrozny, Brandy; Collins, Ben (August 23, 2019). "Facebook bans ads from The Epoch Times after huge pro-Trump buy". CNBC. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  62. Nguyen, Terry (November 27, 2020). "Why fake news is so hard to combat in Asian American communities". Vox. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  63. Greenaway, Norma (August 3, 2010). "Liberals decry secrecy around CSIS report". Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on August 5, 2010. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  64. "Chinese-Canadian leader laments spy agency allegations". Vancouver Courier. July 29, 2010. Archived from the original on May 19, 2012. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  65. Kopp, Sputnik, Epoch Times & Co: Nachrichten aus einem rechten Paralleluniversum Stefan Winterbauer, Meedia. March 13, 2016
  66. Eugenia Chien, "Falun Gong-Linked Media Venture Makes Waves, Raises Questions" Archived March 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine New America Media, News Analysis, May 16, 2006
  67. "The Chinese Press Battles For Hearts And Minds Abroad". HuffPost Canada. February 13, 2014.
  68. Caylan Ford (October 21, 2009). "An underground challenge to China's status quo". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on August 5, 2016.
  69. "全球兴起退出中共运动". Voice of America (in Chinese). June 7, 2005.
  70. OpenNet Initiative. "Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005: A Country Study". 2005. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016.
  71. BBC Monitoring 張強 (September 26, 2005). "分析：互聯網的民主力量引起反彈". BBC (in Chinese).
  72. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (2013). "Falun Gong in China: Review and Update" (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 62–99.
  73. Andrey Illarionov) (January 1, 2012). "БЕЗ ДУРАКОВ, Андрей Илларионов". Echo of Moscow (in Russian). Archived from the original on March 13, 2016.
  74. "Facebook says a pro-Trump media outlet used artificial intelligence to create fake people and push conspiracies". NBC News. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
  75. Craig Silverman (January 8, 2021). "This Pro-Trump YouTube Network Sprang Up Just After He Lost". BuzzFeed News.
  76. Lachlan Markay (January 12, 2021). "Epoch Times revenue soared on Trump conspiracies". Axios.
  77. "This massive YouTube channel is normalizing QAnon". The Daily Dot. August 27, 2019. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
  78. "'Wake-up call': Iowa caucus disinformation serves as warning about 2020 election". NBC News. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  79. Zadrozny, Brandy. "Debunked claims about Iowa voter fraud pushed by conservative activists". NBC News. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  80. Paris Martineau & Louise Matsakis. "Iowa Misinformation Spreads Online, Despite New Policies". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved February 29, 2020.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  81. van Zuylen-Wood, Simon (January 12, 2021). "MAGA-land's Favorite Newspaper". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825.
  82. "Lengthy video makes false claims about 2020 election". Associated Press. December 25, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  83. Nakamura, David; Shih, Gerry (September 18, 2018). "White House reviews incident involving The Epoch Times photographer handing a folder to Trump". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 19, 2018. The photographer, identified by other photojournalists as Samira Bouaou, passed the purple-colored folder to Trump as he was walking out of the East Room on Sept. 12 after delivering remarks at a reception for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
  84. Farhi, Paul (August 14, 2020). "Two sites that amplify hoaxes given special treatment at Trump's briefings despite restrictions". Washington Post. Retrieved August 15, 2020.
  85. "Trump condemns recent attacks on press freedom in Hong Kong | Full news conference". www.youtube.com. Retrieved August 15, 2020 – via YouTube.
  86. "FWIW: Where are they now?". ACRONYM. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  87. The Epoch Times 4 February 2021.
  88. "Expanding Pro-Trump Outlet 'The BL' Is Closely Linked to The Epoch Times". Snopes.com. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  89. "If Facebook Is Dealing with Deceptive 'BL' Network, It's Not Working". Snopes.com. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  90. "How a Pro-Trump Network Is Building a Fake Empire on Facebook and Getting Away with It". Snopes.com. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  91. "Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Georgia, Vietnam and the US". About Facebook. December 20, 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  92. "Facebook Discovers Fakes That Show Evolution of Disinformation". The New York Times. December 20, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
  93. Manavis, Sarah. "How US conspiracy theorists are targeting local government in the UK". New Statesman.
  94. "Viral video promotes the unsupported hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is a bioengineered virus released from a Wuhan research laboratory". Health Feedback. April 17, 2020.
  95. Bellemare, Andrea; Ho, Jason; Nicholson, Katie (April 29, 2020). "Some Canadians who received unsolicited copy of Epoch Times upset by claim that China was behind virus". CBC News. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
  96. "Anti-communist organisation descends on Wagga to spread publication". www.msn.com. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  97. Holroyd, Matthew (May 4, 2020). "Coronavirus: 'Super-spreaders' of COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook identified". Euronews. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  98. "Facebook 'Super-spreaders': Europe – NewsGuard". Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  99. "This map is a forecast based on past data, not real-time satellite readings". AFP Fact Check. February 20, 2020. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  100. admin. "Judy Mikovits: 5 Quick Facts You Should Know | FR24 News English". Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  101. "Scientists Haven't Found Proof The Coronavirus Escaped From A Lab In Wuhan. Trump Supporters Are Spreading The Rumor Anyway". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
  102. Bellemare, Ho, Nicholson, Andrea, Jason, Katie (April 29, 2020). "Some Canadians who received unsolicited copy of Epoch Times upset by claim that China was behind virus". CBC. Archived from the original on April 30, 2020.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  103. Furey, Anthony (April 30, 2020). "Chinese Canadian dissidents are under attack, and the CBC has joined the pile-on". Toronto Sun. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
  104. Matas and Kilgour, David (May 10, 2020). "Opinion: The CBC, the CCP and COVID-19". Toronto Sun.
  105. "Facebook Takes Down Inauthentic Network Associated With Truth Media" (PDF). Graphika. August 2020.
  106. "Facebook removes troll farm posing as African-American support for Donald Trump". NBC News. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  107. "July 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report". About Facebook. August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  108. "Facebook Removes Another Misinformation Network Linked to Epoch Times". Snopes.com. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  109. "Paper denies representing Falun Gong". Associated Press. February 5, 2007. Retrieved March 6, 2014 – via Religion News Blog.
  110. To, James (December 2012). "Beijing's Policies for Managing Han and Ethnic-Minority Chinese Communities Abroad". Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. 41 (4): 183–221. doi:10.1177/186810261204100407.
  111. Ng, Jason Q. (2013). Blocked on Weibo: What Gets Suppressed on China's Version of Twitter (And Why). New Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-1595588715.
  112. Morais, Betsy. "The Epoch Times doesn't like to brag", Capital Magazine, June 23, 2010
  113. University, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown. "David Ownby". berkleycenter.georgetown.edu. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
  114. Ownby 2008, pp. vii–viii, 163, 221–223, 229.
  115. "Make Germany Great Again: Kremlin, Alt-Right and International Influences in the 2017 German Elections" (PDF). Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 2017.
  116. Benjakob, Omer (January 9, 2020). "Why Wikipedia is Much More Effective Than Facebook at Fighting Fake News". Haaretz.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.