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Revision as of 08:24, 24 August 2005

Is there any truth in the allegations that The Epoch Times employs a disproportionate number of Falun Gong practitioners? That might warrant an mention, if true...

Wall Street Journal once ran an investigation on Epoch Times's tax records, and found that XU Kangang, a FLG speaker, is the chairman of the paper's board.

Hello!? It's the "Epoch" Times, isn't it transparent from the name what it's all about? Don't people know what Falun Gong is about any more?

RE: allegations regarding Falun Gong and Epoch Times

The Epoch Times from what I can tell is largely put together by Falun Gong practitioners at present, who as I understand were instrumental in its founding. However, contributions to the paper do not consist solely of practitioners' contributions, nor is it by any means intended to be that way. I don't think the large practitioner contribution is something that people who work on the paper generally deny when asked. It just isn't necessarily something that they shout to the rooftops because the paper is not intended to be judged by the spiritual inclinations of its writers; it is intended to be judged by its content. If you need my source, it is my own experience helping with the paper.

It says, "The paper rarely publishes letters and opinions that do not suit its cause, such as pro-communist and anti-Falun Gong comments, which the paper deems unnecessary. The Times argues that most, if not all government-censored Chinese news sources already contain opinions in agreement with Chinese governmental policies."

Where is the news in this paper? Why do they need to masquerade as a newspaper if their objective is to cast Falun Gong in a sympathetic light by propagandizing "the other side," whatever that is...

It says "The Epoch Times is a conservative Chinese newspaper, " It's not a newspaper and it's not conservative (conservative in what?) It's an anti-CCP pamphlet with a mix of editorialized news and shrill opinions, printed in a newspaper form factor and left out in Chinatowns everywhere for free and picked up by people for entertainment or to wrap fish.

Even if there are more articles about Falun Gong in the paper than in others, its mission is not to cast Falun Gong in a sympathetic light. If you want to see the paper's goal, go to http://english.epochtimes.com/aboutus.html.

Yeah, whatever. They didn't start out as the English version. Their reputation precedes them.

RE: allegations regarding Falun Gong and Epoch Times

If my personal experience is any guide, The Epoch Times definitely is connected to the Falun Gong organization. I was given a copy by someone who was proselytizing for them. She was distributing the paper together with other pieces of literature promoting Falun Gong and their web site. And she told me that by reading these things I would understand better who the Falun Gong were.

Falun Gong practitioners do not normally distribute the Epoch Times with their flyers. This inaccuracy has been up as fact several times in the article, despite its subsequent removal by different parties. Also, although the Epoch Times is most definitely not meant to be a newspaper on Falun Gong and reports mostly on other topics, it does contain more articles than most other media sources to update people on the difficulties facing the practice in China today. Letting people know about this is actually more important to most practitioners than trying to convince people to start practicing, which they aren't supposed to push or force onto anyone anyway. This leads me to wonder whether "proselytize" is actually an accurate word for what they are attempting to do, although I agree that the reality of it might often seem otherwise. Regardless of any connection to Falun Gong, the greater number of Falun Gong articles may have been her actual reason for distributing it along with the flyers.

The number of people associated with Epoch Times is few compared to the total number of Falun Gong believers. Without commenting on my strong suspicion of the strong link as originally stated, it still seems quite conceivable that a few individuals with anti-CCP political agendas may take advantage of Falun Gong as a haven.--yiliu60 03:51, 13 August 2005 (UTC)