Dear Reader,
On June 3, 2024, the Department of Justice announced the arrest and indictment of the CFO of The Epoch Times. The media company has since suspended him until further notice. When reporting on this case, a majority of the news reports labelled The Epoch Times as “Falun Gong-affiliated” or something similar.
This label is vague and, I believe, misleading.
While The Epoch Times was founded by Falun Gong practitioners, the company does not represent nor speak for Falun Gong… no more than The New York Times represents or speaks for all of Judaism simply because The Times publisher for the past 85+ years has been a Jewish family.
Personally, I think the Epoch Times’ China coverage is excellent. However, I certainly do not agree with all of their editorial stances and can say unequivocally, as a Falun Gong practitioner, the paper does not speak for me nor my faith.
Furthermore, while Falun Gong originated in China, today it is practiced in over 100 countries around the world through an informal network of volunteers and meditation practice sites as Falun Gong has no formal clergy or membership. Indeed, people who practice Falun Gong are almost as diverse as humanity itself—a spectrum so vast that no single American media company could be formally “affiliated” with Falun Gong as a whole.
Of course, my colleagues and I welcome the Epoch Times’ consistent and insightful coverage of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, and its ramifications around the world. It takes courage and a strong moral compass to expose the atrocities committed by the Chinese regime, especially given the vast economic and political influence it wields worldwide. To do so in light of the dearth of coverage about the Falun Gong human rights crisis by many other news outlets is all the more admirable. That being said, if an individual at the paper has taken actions in violation of law or values of integrity, that is extremely disappointing.
For too long, news outlets have, intentionally or not, mischaracterized the relationship between The Epoch Times and Falun Gong, and so I felt it was necessary to clarify this issue at this time. |
