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https://www.theepochtimes.com/c-american-thought-leaders?utm_source=ATLNewsletter&utm_medium=email
Peter Kopa, Prague, 29.7.2021
Historical origin
The Epoch Time is an example of mediatic innovation, in paper and in digital mode, improving the information to people worldwide.
In 1999, a group of Chinese in New York created the Chinese newspaper ‘Da Ji Yuan’, which means ‘Great Historical Epoch’, or The Epoch Times. The purpose was to report on the persecution of the Chinese cultural movement Falun Gong, banned by the Communist government. This initiative is related to the New Tang Dynasty NTD, which established a golden age of high spiritual and human values in China in the 7th and 8th centuries. In 2001, a group of Chinese immigrants, who managed to escape from communism, founded the NTD television network to offer Chinese people around the world, from the USA, a reliable and free information service. At the same time NTD spreads the universal values of Chinese wisdom.
Another similar initiative, which draws on the golden age mentioned above, arose earlier in China, in 1992, when Mr. Li laid the foundations of the Falun Gong movement, which aimed to filter the official news and seek the truth. Logically, they were immediately violently persecuted, with torture, for having revealed, for example, the practice of organ harvesting from people condemned to death and for fighting homosexuality.
It was against this backdrop that the Chinese-language newspaper The Epoch Times appeared in New York in 2000, to counter Chinese propaganda and the persecution of the Falun Gong organization. Four years later, it was also published in English. After twelve years, in 2016 and in 2017, the newspaper had two innovations that launched it to the highest ranking of digital publishers. At the same time its Sino-American managers have had the great vision to rely on Facebook, creating many promotional video pages with a viral effect, which has boosted subscriptions to unexpected levels. The New York Times has written in 2017 that The Epoch Times ‘is the largest and most prestigious mass media in the world’.
Its spirit has shifted to the right of the political spectrum, being today the ‘influencer’ that stands up to the ‘mainstream-media’of leftist inspiration, controlled by the big media groups. At the same time, it has distanced itself from the Chinese Falun Gong movement, while remaining faithful to the principles of ancient Chinese wisdom. The paper circulation is now at 1.7 million copies, in 21 languages worldwide, rivaling the other two news agencies The Daily Caller and Breitbard News, both also right-wing, the latter supporting the idea of socio-political and economic conspiracy worldwide.
The current situation
Probably because of its sympathies towards President Trump, last year Facebook blocked all advertising to The Epoch Times, after having spent 1.5 million dollars on it. In addition, more than 500 pages and accounts were censored this year, under the pretext of lack of transparency. Meanwhile, the media has gone to Youtube, where it has already left 1.8 million USD.
Where does the money come from? In this question and in general, the management of The Epoche Time keeps a remarkable reserve. It is thought that there are Chinese who help them with donations, every time the numbers don’t come out well, just like so many other media. Since 2018 their tax returns are accessible to the public.
Currently the newspaper devotes a lot of space to the coronavirus, denouncing that the virus has been cultivated and developed in China as part of its biological warfare strategy and saying that the World Health Organization is run by the Chinese government. Evidently, one can assume that The Epoch Time has the most extensive and effective network of informants inside China.
