The Epoch Times
The Epoch Times is a conservative, anti-communist American newspaper[1] founded in 2000 by Chinese immigrants who fled persecution by the Communist regime.[2] There are editions in over 30 countries which are published in more than 20 languages.[3] It is known for its reporting on the Spygate scandal in which Obama administration official and deep state agents spied on the Trump campaign.
The Epoch Times is currently owned by the Epoch Times Media Group which also owns NTD, a New York-based TV channel which currently broadcasts in the US and Canada. NTD broadcasts the same things as what the Epoch Times prints as well as producing 2 crowdfunded programs called China Uncensored and America Uncovered which focuses on both Chinese and American politics respectively; both programs have segments first broadcast via YouTube then several segments are combined into 30-minute episodes which are then broadcast on NTD. NTD is currently based in New York City. The Epoch Times also produces a series of YouTube videos hosted by Larry Elder with the slogan of "we've got a country to save!"
On April 9, 2020, the Epoch Times released a documentary where they tried to find the source of the CCP virus (SARS-CoV-2) which has since been published on an array of YouTube channels.[4] And a day later, the author of the Documentary, Joshua Phillip had an interview with Ezra Levant of Rebel News.[5]
Mainstream media smear campaign
In August 2019, NBC and MSNBC began a smear campaign slandering The Epoch Times. It published textbook fake news articles complete with claims from "unnamed" (i.e. non-existent) sources without providing any evidence about the organization, as well as dismissing the Epoch Times' reporting of the Spygate scandal as a "conspiracy theory" without providing any factual rebuttal, take it a step further when Rachel Maddow showed footage from an unrelated YouTube show about conspiracy theories, claiming that was content produced by The Epoch Times. NBC also reiterated propaganda talking points made by the Chinese Communist party on the Falun Gong spiritual practice banned in China, while downplaying the scale of the regime's crackdown on the practice.[1][6] [7][8]
NBC claimed that the Epoch Times spent money on "pro-Trump" Facebook ads, despite the fact that they were advertisements for the print newspaper's subscription which highlighted articles on Trump. In response to the report from NBC, Facebook banned ads for The Epoch Times, despite the fact that The New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media organizations have also aired similar Facebook ads. The New York Times and CNN have a stronger partisan bias than the Epoch Times.
On October 25, 2020, the New York Times published an "investigative" hit piece against The Epoch Times mirroring many talking points espoused by NBC a year prior. This included claiming that the The Epoch Times "used aggressive Facebook tactics and right-wing misinformation to create an anti-China, pro-Trump media empire." In response, The Epoch Times published an article highlighting "selective quotations", "personal bias" and "false information" present in the "investigative" report. It also linked to archives of concerning Twitter conversations between the author, Kevin Roose and NBC's Ben Collins which "suggested they should have received 'a bounty' from Facebook for getting the company to ban Epoch Times advertisements."[9][10]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 NBC News Fails CRC Fact Check: The Epoch Times Is No Pro-Trump Dark Money Operation. Retrieved on 6 October 2019.
- ↑ First published in Chinese in 2000, and then in English starting in 2003 (online edition) and in 2004 (print edition).
- ↑ https://www.theepochtimes.com/about-us
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bXWGxhd7ic
- ↑ https://www.rebelnews.com/exposing_the_chinese_communist_origin_of_the_wuhan_virus_interview_with_the_epoch_times_joshua_philipp
- ↑ "Why NBC, MSNBC’s Reporting on The Epoch Times Is Textbook Fake News", www.theepochtimes.com, 22 August 2019.
- ↑ "Epoch Times Statement in Response to NBC Facebook Stories", www.theepochtimes.com, 23 August 2019. Retrieved on 7 October 2019.
- ↑ "Opinion | NBC News Smears a Competitor", WSJ.
- ↑ "New York Times’ 8-Month-Long ‘Investigation’ of The Epoch Times: Light on Facts, Heavy on Bias", www.theepochtimes.com, 26 October 2020. Retrieved on 27 October 2020.
- ↑ "How The Epoch Times Created a Giant Influence Machine", New York Times.
