Talk:The Epoch Times/Archive 2

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Archive 5

Mediation update

The Mediation Committee is currently discussing whether or not it is possible for mediation of Falun Gong articles to continue. We appreciate your patience and any input you have to offer here. For the Mediation Committee, Martinp23 20:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

History section and the next step

I'm taking the initiative to continue progress on this section. The discussion can be found on a separate page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Epoch_Times/History_section_attempt, where Tomananda and I were in the process of thrashing out the issues. I have adopted much of the content there and put in this formulation. If there are problems or ideas about how to make it even better we should discuss. The last questions to Tomananda have not really be contested. He was being accused of putting his bias into this edit. He has been found guilty of biased editing. There is a lot of discussion with reference to policy on the above page, and I stopped the revert war with him in favor of alternative methods of dispute resolution. I would invite anyone else to engage in the same process. If the current formulation is not agreeable, perhaps we could remove the contested part altogether until something is decided. The old stuff was only there because of Tomananda's aggressive re-insertions, not because of its legitimacy. Anyway, I have altered it in accordance with the discussion, and invite any prospective editors to carefully read the discussion and if there is a problem to discuss it civilly.--Asdfg12345 23:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism in Israel

The text below it's not sourced, this is basically only Original Research like this. See WP:OR. "

Members of the Israeli peace movement have criticised the Hebrew edition of The Epoch Times for taking increasingly outspoken positions similar to those of the nationlaist right-wing, in opposition to peace with the Palestinians and with Syria involving territorial concessions. According to Israeli peacniks such as Uri Avnery, taking such positions might alienate a large part of the Israeli public and prevent it from taking seriously what the paper has to say about human rights in China.

" --HappyInGeneral 13:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Jia Jia??

He is Secretary General of the Shanxi Provincial Expert Association of Science and Technology, not Secretary General of the Science and Technology Association of Shanxi Province. The latter is an official organization of the government, while the former is totally not.

I just wonder who made this careless mistake. 24.107.1.70 07:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Epoch Times received funding from Falun Gong Associations

Here's the money trail between Epoch Times and Falun Gong. I have found in non-profit declarations at least 2-3 Falun Gong groups giving money to Epoch Times:

Southern USA Falun Dafa Association. $10,350 were given to Epoch Times in 2002, $22,700 in 2003, $14,750 in 2004: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2002/760/692/2002-760692185-1-9.pdf http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/760/692/2003-760692185-1-9.pdf http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/760/692/2004-760692185-1-9.pdf

Falun Dafa Association of New England. $57,609 were spent on computer and print media, $97,755 in 2003, $116,823 in 2004: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2002/043/576/2002-043576893-1-9.pdf http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2003/043/576/2003-043576893-1-Z.pdf http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/043/576/2004-043576893-02038ba1-9.pdf

(These are but two examples of the hundreds of FLG non-profits in US.)

-- bobby fletcher 14:37, 26 August 2007 (PST)

Interesting. Maybe it's time that this evidence be used to show that the Epoch Times is indeed funded by the Falun Gong, thus showing it is NOT neutral. I wonder where Falun Gong got all its funding from, lol... Jsw663 10:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually if you read the actual documents you will see that the Falun Dafa association gave time to Epoch Times, like any other news paper to "promote the Falun Dafa budism". Well yes, as far as these documents goes you can say that they did buy ads :) Anyway ... it's clear that practitioners help Epoch Times, but not as much financially using the association as you imply it here :) --HappyInGeneral 12:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Happy, ther cited dollar figures above came from the non-profit disclosure. They are money given to Epoch Times, not time.

For those who do not learn from history...

And i allways thought it was jews who are manipulating the media and steal our money. But i guess now that China is the superpower we have to help them get rid of their enemies - new enemies. But luckily we can still use the same prejudges to get rid of them. And what better way to do so than to dehumanize all that anti-communist scum!

--Hoerth 10:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ad hominem attacks

I learned recently that my name (Jan Jekielek) was mentioned in reference to ad hominem attacks on this page, and Charles Liu aka Bobby fletcher's questionable blog was used as a reference. I am referring to the following line in the text, where I moments ago added a reference that can be substantiated:

Some Epoch Times journalists has been accused of using ad hominem attacks in response to criticism. Epoch Times journalists Jana Shearer[1], Lorraine Kabacinski and Jan Jekielek has accused Falun Gong critics and bloggers of being "Chinese spies" [2]

Newly added reference: Western Standard (Alberta, April 9, 2007) Sowing Confusion; Embarrassed by reports of live organ harvesting, China’s sympathizers launch a high-tech disinformation campaign

The article I reference above mentions Jana Shearer as accusing Charles Liu aka Bobby fletcher "of being an agent for the Chinese government." I cannot speak as to Lorraine Kabacinski's comments, but I can say that I have not accused Charles Liu of being a spy. I did, however, mention in a blog posting that his behaviour of spreading disinformation was consistent with what a PRC agent would do. I am thus removing the references to Lorraine Kabacinski and myself from the citation, as it itself would appear to construe an ad hominem attack, without support. Charles Liu's blog hardly provides a reputable reference. It would also be fitting to modify the statement to express that Jana Shearer accused exactly no more than one person this way. I look forward to feedback from the admins of this page on this issue -- please take a look at the section, as I am new to writing wikipedia entries. I am not sure, but perhaps it makes more sense to remove the paragraph entirely.

--Longtrekhome 16:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't care much for this article or this subject, but I have serious doubts that Bobby Fletcher and his blog are reliable sources. Just my 2p.... Ohconfucius (talk) 09:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Reliability of Epoch Times disputed

A. Epoch Times association with Falun Gong is a documented fact:

1) Per Thomas Lum's CRS report "China and Falun Gong" (section CRS-7, page 10):

"FLG followers are affiliated withseveral mass media outlets, including Internet sites; the Epoch Times"

2) Funding from various Falun Gong Associations to Epoch Times can be found in non-profit disclosures: (example Southern USA Falun Dafa Association, 02-06 Form 990, part III):

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2002/760/692/2002-760692185-1-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2003/760/692/2003-760692185-1-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/760/692/2004-760692185-1-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2005/760/692/2005-760692185-024eee8e-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2006/760/692/2006-760692185-031af764-9.pdf

There are further evidence of Epoch Times financial connection with various Falun Gong Associations on www.guidestar.org, a clearinghouse of non-profit information.

B. There are also evidence of editorial inaccuracy and dishonesty:

1) My personal encounters with Epoch Times reporters who resort to personal attack and character assissination in attempt to silence its critics. Specifically I have documented these encounters between myself, as well as other bloggers, and Epoch Times reporters.

2) Many of the supposed evidence of atrocities presented by Epoch Times failed physician review. Specifically Dr. Ramana reviewed the photos had found many of them to be medical in nature and are not evidence of torture. For example the photo used to make the sexual torture claim here is in reality photo of a woman suffering from advanced breast cancer:

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-10-21/33602.html

Epoch Times has been made aware of this, but refuses to correct or retract this story.

3)Here's a news report from New America Media, where a Duke University media project director had questioned Epoch Times' reliablility:

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=6ce9872ebb88b3aaa3ff48b6c1ffc19a

"It[Epoch Times] is not viewed as an independent objective news media,"

"The Epoch Times' credibility is damaged as media professionals,"

Bobby fletcher (talk) 02:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I am no expert on this paper, but I suggest that someone simply creates a section called "Credibility" where we cover the paper's funding and any stories that were untrue. HOWEVER, we must be very careful of what sources we use! 134.84.96.142 (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"Controversy" might just be changed to "Commentary" and include a survey of the responses published in other media about this paper. There are a couple of features floating around which could be used--an AP at least, and one or two others. Then there's already stuff in there. The notorious Charles Liu has also posted some useful info, it would appear, above.--Asdfg12345 05:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I created the new section. Anyone who has more evidence either way is welcome to add it. Bobby, I did not include your financial info because it regards local F.G. groups and is most likely advertising. I also did not include your breast cancer allegation because there was no source for it being fake. 134.84.96.142 (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

In addition to receiving financial support from various Falun Dafa Associations, Falun Gong media have also received funding from faction of US Congress that's considered Blue Team China hawks.

Most notably The Friends of Falun Gong, a quasi-government organization created by Congressman Tom Lanto's wife, Annette Lantos, and Ambassador Mark Palmer, one of the co-founders of NED:

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2001/134/145/2001-134145670-1-9.pdf (page 4, list of directors)

FoF's non-profit filings over the years show that millions were given to various Falun Gong media outlets:

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2005/134/145/2005-134145670-028e40ed-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/134/145/2004-134145670-01d39938-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2003/134/145/2003-134145670-1-9.pdf

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2002/134/145/2002-134145670-1-9.pdf

Bobby fletcher (talk) 17:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Bobby, I don't see anything there that relates to Epoch Times. 134.84.96.142 (talk) 21:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

142, Statement 3 of the 2003 return stated "media advertising". If NTDTV and Sound of Hope have received funding(ref 2005), what's the chance Epoch Times didn't? It's pretty obvious this is kinda like "Charlie Wilson's War" - millions are pumped into Falun Gong media unofficially thru this quasi-government organization.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 08:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Supposing your hypothesis is correct, we still can't include it in the article until there is a credible source that explicitly states it. 134.84.96.142 (talk) 04:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Stay tuned, I'll keep on searching the public records. Bobby fletcher (talk) 04:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The best source to see the tie between Falungong and The Epoch Times is The Epoch Times itself. Just grab a copy and read yourself. The paper take every possible opportunities to smear Chinese government, some may hold truth, but many are made up or exzagerated. I did feel sorry for Falungong at first after Chinese government outcast them. However the more I read about falungong (specially in the epoch times) my sympathy is gone, Epoch time has become a propaganda paper, it seems Falungong's primary goal is no longer teach about Falungong, it is rather to have revenge on Chinese government. Foxhunt99 (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

:) in a way it's very true what you say regarding that everybody should make up his own mind :) --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Intro

I think the FLG connection should really be front and center in the intro. This is not an independent newspaper with a vague and difficult-to-prove FLG connection, it is the movement's mouthpiece. Alexwoods (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you feel that the second paragraph fair enough? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Advice from Doug Copp: The final verification of Epoch Times' pseudoscience

I believe I have finally found an article from Epoch Times [3] that is so outrageous that it undermines all of Epoch Times' claims to be an independent source. By using Doug Copp as a definititive source as a guide for surivival in an earthquake, Epoch Times may be responsible for causing the death of numerous earthquake victims. I have seen Doug Copp, and every reliable mainstream source says that he is a charlatan willing to put his own personal profit above the lives of innocent people. [4] [5] [6] [7] EgraS (talk) 22:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to suggest Epoch Times "may be responsible for causing the death of numerous earthquake victim." This guy's theories may be disputed but I don't think it matters so much, people disagree about everything. Either way it has nothing to do with improving the article, we shouldn't discuss it here.--Asdfg12345 22:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I find it comparable to seeing a news source publish something regarding the claims of white supremists to be factual. This is certainly important. EgraS (talk) 23:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That does not sound like an accurate example, according to my understanding. I can only suggest again that you read WP:V and WP:OR. If you can find a reliable source that criticises Epoch Times for including this guys comments then we can put that in the article, but that's it. If you read those pages it should be clear what I mean.--Asdfg12345 23:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Since I have made a personal commitment to only revert once per day, I am unable to undo your edit. But it was a mistake from you. I urge you to read the above core content policies and reassess your edit in that light. The point is that there is no reliable source which says "The Epoch times frequently uses pseudoscience to bolster its claims" -- you need a source for that, or the rest is inadmissible. There is a section in the original research page about this: Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position, please read this part carefully. It would be a gesture of goodwill if you, after reading the relevant policy and realising your honest mistake, undid the edit yourself.--Asdfg12345 23:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Fine, lets take it to the talk page. I will revert my own edits and only add it once there is input. EgraS (talk) 23:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Claims of Pseudoscience

I believe that it should be added in the appropiate section, seeing that ET has criticized the PRC for not heeding calls to earthquake prediction even though it is widely acknowledged to be something that can't be predicted. It also published this article as fact [8], using sources from Doug Copp, who has been widely criticized by every mainstream disaster relief organization.[9] [10] [11] [12] EgraS (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you please let me know whether you have read the original research and verifiability policies, linked above, and specifically, the policy about no syntheses?--Asdfg12345 00:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I feel the Epoch Times's primary objectives is not to make balanced reports, but to portray the PRC in the worst possible light, and that somehow the PRC's various media controls justify its own biases. However, you really need more sources for the claim that "The Epoch Times frequently uses pseudoscience to bolster its claims", as I doubt the Epoch Times even know who Doug Copp is, they'll publish anything that is critical of the PRC.--PCPP (talk) 07:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think Epoch Times has a strong editorial stance against the CCP, and want people to show that is just a nasty gang of scoundrels. That's pretty clear, isn't it? One of the chapters of the nine ping is called "how the chinese communist party is an evil cult". That's a special editorial translated from Chinese though, obviously not following journalistic conventions. I think the english Epoch Times otherwise follows journalistic conventions in its reporting. It does not report positive things about the CCP, from my observations, it shows the bad things of that regime. And it is the CCP that it is against, not China. Be sure not to confuse the two. --Asdfg12345 14:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Source of funding from Falun Dafa Association to Epoch Times

Sourced from GuideStar, a clearing house of non-profit disclosure:

Southern USA Falun Dafa Association. $10,350 were given to Epoch Times in 2002, $22,700 in 2003, $14,750 in 2004

- http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2002/760/692/2002-760692185-1-9.pdf - http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/760/692/2003-760692185-1-9.pdf - http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/760/692/2004-760692185-1-9.pdf

And your point is? Epoch Times was founded by Falun Gong practitioners. Quoting the second paragraph: "The newspaper was founded by practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual group persecuted in the People's Republic of China. Its stated focus is coverage of China and human rights issues. Its editorial stance has been described as critical of the Chinese Communist Party and sympathetic to dissidents. China blocks access by mainlanders to the Epoch Times's website." --79.118.5.168 (talk) 05:57, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Saying stuff that has direct sources is fine; adding the stuff from guidestar in the context it was added is clearly original research

"Persecuted" vs. "outlawed"

Regarding the recent edits, I agree with PCPP that "outlawed" is better language to use here. "Persecuted" is a word that people will dispute over and over again and cause the article to be unstable; "outlawed" is something that is in the law books (as far as I know) and hardly anyone would try to deny. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 13:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I have to write this quickly because I need to sleep right now. It's not false that Falun Gong is "outlawed" in China, but 1) scholars have proven the persecution is in violation of the constitution, so it's already a contradictory statement and therefore itself a highly disputed claim (can forward you the Edelman and Richardson, Journal of Church and State piece), 2) the context here is to explain why they founded the newspaper, not to provide technical information about the 'legal status' of the discipline in China. They started the paper because people were getting sent to forced labor camps, tortured, beaten to death, etc., being denied any voice in any public channel, being fired from jobs, being forced to quit university, etc. etc., (all of this verifiable in reliable sources, of course, so, essentially for wikipedia, "True," and even less true than the 'outlaw' number, because there are reliable sources disputing that, and (as far as I'm aware), no reliable sources arguing against the reality of the torture, beatings etc., but only reliable sources corroborating it.) Wikipedia is obviously determined by what sources say, not what editors like or dislike. 3) Despite all this, what is being presented here is obviously the perspective from the Epoch Times, and clearly they are concerned with the persecution over the apparent legal status. 3) Side note: There is the whole question of what law means under the CCP anyway, (not within the scope of this discussion, but just something to consider.) So if you want the Journal of State piece that shows how the persecution is illegal anyway I'll chuck it on mediafire with a link or just give you the bibliographic details, assuming you have academic access; lastly, if there's any dispute about the things I said about the persecution I can give a dozen links to high-profile sources on that. They're all on the persecution page anyway, but I once pulled them from there and presented them in order, since that's just how one has to do things sometimes. Sleep beckons. --Asdfg12345 16:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, did you know that the offices of the paper (in mainland China) were raided in 2000 and everyone sent to labor camps? Here's one guy's story: [13]--Asdfg12345 16:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on all that, and have no problem with it. I've just replaced the wording in that particular sentence because that sentence: the sentence (in the current revision) reads: "The newspaper was founded by practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual group outlawed in the People's Republic of China." In that context, the discursive function of the phrase "a spiritual group outlawed in the PRC" is just to provide readers with an identifying description of what the group is, in case they're new readers and have never heard of FLG for; the purpose of that particular sentence is not to say why ET was founded or what it's mission is. If you write more stuff in another part of the article about how ET's raison d'etre is the persecution of the FLG, I will support you on that and even help out with writing it. But it's just that in this particular sentence there is no need to identify FLG as "a group that is persecuted in the PRC"—it doesn't help identify the FLG any better than "outlawed" does, and it introduces language that lots of editors are going to challenge (whether or not we agree that they should challenge it, it still raises the problem of destabilizing the article). On the other hand, saying somewhere else "ET was formed mainly as a response to persecution of the FLG by the Chinese government" has a different nuance to it that makes us look more neutral and doesn't invite criticism from fanatical editors (which abound at these sorts of articles). —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

你講的道理. Don't know what I'm still doing up. Resolution-time to be extended.--Asdfg12345 17:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

呵呵. Every time I say "ok last edit, I'm going to bed now," I wind up making at least 5 more edits after that... —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

HappyInGeneral has reverted again. I am not an expert on FLG, but from what I can tell it has been more or less officially banned (see Xinhua, China Bans Falun Gong, People's Daily, July 22, 1999 ; and other refs given in Falun Gong#The 'ban'. The word "ban" or "outlaw" may not appear in the ref that is given in this article, but words like "ban" and "illegal" do appear elsewhere.

I'm not disputing that there has been persecution. I'm just saying that there is also a ban and, for the reasons I listed above, identifying FLG in this paragraph as being "outlawed" rather than "persecuted" will be better for the article as a whole; there can be an entire section elsewhere in the article talking about the persecution. Anyway, for now I am going to revert back to "outlawed," for the reasons I described above and because it is my impression that Asdfg also supports this wording (please correct me if I'm wrong, Asdfg); if you think this is wrong, we can discuss it here some more. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 14:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Look, my view is that it's obviously more meaningful to say that Falun Gong is persecuted in China than it is to say that it is banned/outlawed. Think: why don't we say that Falun Gong is 'discouraged' in mainland China? It's also 'discouraged', that's not a lie. It also lost 'official recognition'; it also 'received criticism'. We could characterise it also by any of those other ways, and basically they have as much relevance or standing in characterising it as 'outlawed' or 'banned.' I actually think they have even more strength than this claim, since no one is claiming that Falun Gong was 'discouraged' or that it 'lost official recognition' etc., whereas the whole question of the meaning of how it is possible to actual "outlaw" a belief, which is a contradiction of the constitution, is at play when we use this term (like, it undermines the very idea of law itself. By breaking its own most basic law the CCP is attacking the source and meaning of law itself in China--it means that what we usually understand by this term, "outlaw," could then not properly be applied to this case.) In the end though we are dealing with people editing an encyclopedia, and maybe it's weak of me or something, but I think there is some value in simply leaving some things unchallenged while keeping the wider view in mind. That is, if someone is otherwise a cooperative and reasonable fellow but just insists on "outlawed," then I would let it slide for the purpose of cooperation and goodwill. If no one's insisting on that though, I'd just put it back. I think outlawed/banned is inadequate, inaccurate, problematic, though, and it's simpler and more correct to call a spade a spade. Besides all this ramble, the key point I thought you made, Politzer, was to simply say that the paper was founded by practitioners in response to the persecution--this gives immediate context, and it's then not necessary to split these hairs. Besides, when you get too many split hairs, your hair looks quite messy and it's time to spend money on a haircut. Who wants that, really?

The word "persecution" is largely touted and used by FLG-related organizations such as "Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong", "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong", "United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong" etc. The page Persecution_of_Falun_Gong was renamed from Suppression of Falun Gong[14] by pro-FLG editors. According to WP:Title#Controversial names "Article and section titles should be chosen, where possible, to avoid implying a viewpoint. For section titles, a compromise may be needed between a neutral and a concise heading, while for article titles, words which should usually be avoided may be part of the title if this is the most common name for the subject of the article. In other cases, choose a descriptive title that does not imply a particular conclusion." To label the ban a "persecution", or that FLG is a "cult", endorses a particular viewpoint, regardless of use outside wikipedia.--PCPP (talk) 06:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Amnesty International says it's persecution [15], although I think it would be more academically correct to call it Genocide, because these action does fall under it's definition: "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.". --HappyInGeneral (talk) 12:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The article that I think you are trying to link to (the first article in the search, linked directly here), is about persecution of a single practitioner, not persecution of all FLG. So you can't use it to verify that AI says all FLG is persecuted. I agree with you that they probably do believe that, but the specific link you gave doesn't prove that. And regardless of whether or not AI uses the word "persecuted," it's still wrong to use that word in the specific context we're discussing, for the reasons I mentioned above.

I agree with you that the treatment of FLG amounts to persecution, but in the article it should be discussed as such, not boiled down to a single sentence ("FLG is a group that is persecuted in China") and presented as indisputable fact or fiction...there is a lot of discussion going on about it and it should be treated with more care, not just dropped in in a single sentence. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 14:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

In the article you mentioned [16] there is a prominent quote saying "Call on the Chinese Prime Minister to end persecution of the Falun Gong". This is proof that Amnesty International is saying that there is a persecution going on (although I still think it's genocide). Plus, I did not even gave 1 article as source but the search criteria on Amnesty International returning over 90 articles on the mistreatment of not the same practitioner but of practitioners of Falun Gong. I did give Amnesty International as a source here because it is a well respected third party entity in Human Rights matters. Still I would also recommend the first hand sources on this, one of which is http://faluninfo.net/

Plus, I strongly disagree with the wording of outlawed, because that is not correct/relevant here. Here are my 2 reasons regarding this:

1. For something to be outlawed it must be in accordance with that states constitution it must have some legal procedure for it. Falun Gong became outlawed only because Jiang Zemin ordered it so, after that everything became retroactive.
2. Even if the Chinese communist government does outlaw something this still does not give it the right to freely commit crimes against humanity under that umbrella.

So when you say outlawed instead of persecution, there is a great deal of information hidden. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I am not proposing to hide any information, merely saying that in the particular sentence we are talking about "outlawed" is a better and more succinct wording. You are more than welcome to add further analysis (with reliable sources) to discuss the specific situation of FLG in China, and I think that would be a benefit to the article.

As for whether or not FLG is "outlawed," I am not an expert, but I will say that whether it came from the state constitution or from Jiang is not really relevant here; if there is a law in the books saying X is illegal, than X can be described as "outlawed," regardless of whether or not the reasons for outlawing were good. As an example, Proposition 8 that just passed in California has banned gay marriage from the state...my personal beliefs are that this proposition was passed by a bunch of imbeciles and should never have been made official, but that doesn't change the fact that gay marriage is "outlawed," in a sense, regardless of the provenance of the law.

Finally, my use of "outlawed" in the sentence in question is in no way an attempt to justify, or make any other value judgment about, the PRC's actions regarding FLG. I agree with you that something's being "outlawed" is not an excuse for the government to commit crimes against humanity. But the government's conduct doesn't change the fact that FLG is outlawed.

Please excuse me if anything I have said here is not applicable to this issue, because there was also a recent discussion at Talk:People's Republic of China#dispute again on how to word the part about Falun Gong about a very similar issue, and I may be getting the two particular examples mixed up. You are welcome to read the discussion there to find some more background; I believe in that article the end result was to refer to FLG as "a spiritual practice outlawed in China" and then also mention the persecution later in the same sentence. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 21:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, now that I've looked a bit closer, I just noticed that we already do have "persecution" worked into the article ("The newspaper was founded by practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, in response to their nationwide persecution in the People's Republic of China"), and in a pretty neutral way, so I don't think there's anything to disagree over. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 21:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

yep, this'll work. --Asdfg12345 00:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've rewrote the phrase somewhere along the lines of "the crackdown is considered religious persecution by several human rights groups"--PCPP (talk) 12:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I like your suggestion. I did some minor copyediting to clarify the agentivity (again, it's the PRC's crackdown, not the FLG's crackdown; the PRC is the one doing the crackdown), and now I think the wording is the best possible representation of everyone's input here. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I simplified the sentence. I don't think a single sentence at the top of The Epoch Times article is the right place to provide all these ifs ands or buts about what the actions of the Chinese Communist Party should be correctly labelled. The point is to provide the reason for the founding of the newspaper--the simpler the better, I reckon. Aside from that, crackdown and ban are vague terms, and they have a different meaning to persecution. It actually doesn't take a rocket scientist to sort this out. Simply look at the meaning of the word "persecution:" "Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual/group by another group." Is anyone here disputing that the Chinese Communist Party is systematically mistreating Falun Gong practitioners? What else is there to it? --Asdfg12345 08:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Should we keep the tags?

Hello, I would like to delete the tags in the lead [17]. If there are any objections please note them here. If there are not, I will delete them in a week. Thank you! --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I won't say anything about content tags, because to be honest I have never sat down and read this whole article from start to finish. POV looks good to me, though, so I wouldn't have a problem with your removing the neutrality tag. Not sure about the OR tag. As for the {{restructure}} tag, though, that should definitely stay; regardless of content, the article is very poorly organized (that is, in fact, part of the reason I haven't read it) and needs to have a much better heirarchical structure. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's probably best if you get someone from WikiProject Journalism to take a look and do a quick assessment of the article, too; that would be a good way to get an uninvolved editor's opinion about the tags. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:44, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your input! I followed up with your suggestion, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Journalism#Requesting_a_quick_assessment_for_The_Epoch_Times --HappyInGeneral (talk) 15:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

After doing some more work on the article, I am wary about removing any of the tags until the entire thing is gone through and fixed. The major problem is still structure and coherence—the Epoch Times#Distribution section (which I just created by merging a bunch of stuff scattered around from the article), for example, is just a random list of different numbers, from different dates, and is totally incoherent. The "Renunciation" section, likewise, seems to have a lot of random things just thrown in one by one with no concern for the overall flow of the article. I have already had to remove several paragraphs that were just random RECENTISMs (news events thrown into the article when they happened, but not actually notable) and were contributing nothing to the coherence of the article.

Granted, these things do not directly reflect POV or OR. But they were all almost certainly added to push some kind of POV or to make some implicature about the paper, and it will be impossible to evaluate this article's POV until it is made more coherent. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Stuff shortened

I trimmed PCPP's addition because it was too long a description of one minor event; also, I merged it into a different section because it is not notable enough to deserve its own subsection (and the subsection had been titled "Controversy," which is a poor descriptor; there are plenty of other controversies with this newspaper, too). If my summarizing/digesting of this issue is inaccurate then feel free to edit that bit, but please don't make it into a multi-paragraph thing again; it's a minor incident and really should remain short. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I have no problem with your trimming, only added minor edits on the resulting legal case.--PCPP (talk) 12:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so this isn't even about the Epoch Times? The controversy is over Asian Pacific Post? Then what is it doing in this article? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:08, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It should be in the Asian Pacific Post article if there is one. It doesn't concern the newspaper The Epoch Times--the printing press that made the call is not the same as the newspaper, they just share a similar name. They are different things, completely different entities. The printing press is just a commercial printing press that prints a lot of newspapers, including The Epoch Times (and obviously, until recently the Asian Pacific Post). That's the only connection between the Epoch Times and Frank Cui--he prints their newspaper. I just see there's no wikipedia article on the Asian Pacific Post, so I'd suggest simply removing the text since it isn't related to this article.--Asdfg12345 01:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The printing press is aflliated with Epoch Times. Stop trying to censor stuff.--PCPP (talk) 05:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

We're not trying to "censor" anything, and accusations of such do nothing but slow down the editing process; please be civil.

Now, the fact of the matter is, the sources I checked (out of the footnotes you included) don't even mention Epoch Times, nor does the text itself. The affiliation is a loose one at best, and is not directly relevant here. Please do not add the text back until you can prove the relevance and affiliation, and generate consensus. No one wants to have an edit war. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The printing press is as much affiliated with The Epoch Times as they were with the Asian Pacific Post--that is, it's a printing company who prints for a whole lot of media orgs. It would be a relevant snippet for an article on the Asian Pacific Post, if there comes to be one on wikipedia in future.--Asdfg12345 02:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

"Quitting the CCP"

What the Epoch Time "claims" as people withdrawing from the Party is a joke. If you just making a post on their website's forum, located here: http://tuidang.epochtimes.com/. You can just randomly sign up with a fake name and a fake story, they'll count you as "one of the people that has quit the party." You can also call their local telephone number (which I did), and make up a story about your childhood, etc, and you'll be considered as "quiting the Party." This is only ONE of the many hilarious aspects of this newspaper. Try it yourself! You don't even have to use Chinese! 24.80.236.14 (talk) 22:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

With the risk of entering WP:SOAP a bit, a question. If you would wanted to make an official organization that would like to count the people who are not supportive of the CCP inside mainland China, knowing full well that people could be jailed and suffer material losses for exposing this view of theirs how would you think it would be best to do it? Any good alternatives? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 15:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Article's quality rating

One editor has rated the article C-class and suggested it is "almost" B-class. I changed it to Start because of serious problems in the article, and was reverted with the rationale that C-class articles may have POV or OR problems. But I wasn't lowering the rating because of POV or OR, I was doing it because of other problems:

• Very poor structure and organization (especially in the Distribution and 9 Commentaries sections), described above
• Badly formatted references, it's not even clear where many of them come from

In short, the article looks pretty at first glance, but if you actually sit down and try to read it it's incoherent and it's difficult to learn anything from it. To be honest, I have never once managed to maintain focus and read the whole thing, because of the incoherent nature of the writing. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"C" class isn't a particularly good rating. As described at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Grades, C class "may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research." The criteria for "start" class, by contrast, is much weaker: basically, enough references to establish notability. I counted seven very good sources used for the article; that's well beyond what would be expected in a start class article. I've also done some cleanup; hopefully that will be seen as improving it so that it is clearly "C" class. I do concur that it is a long, long way from "B" class; most of the 32 sources cited are violations of WP:RS and/or give undue weight to what the newspaper says about itself, or what the newspaper reported. If there aren't independent sources for such information, then the article needs to be shortened. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fine; C is not a big deal. Mainly I just wanted to make it clear that this article is far from B-class. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:07, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Wenyi Wang

Regarding this addition...I don't see why it's necessary to have such a large section devoted to one Epoch Times reporter who, as far as I can tell, was "going rogue". This is important for the Wenyi Wang article, but it's not necessarily a major part of the Epoch Times' history, and I don't think such undue weight should be given to it (if it even needs to be mentioned at all). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:07, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not really enough of a change, IMO. The paragraph is barely any shorter, and to be honest I don't think it should be here at all (in fact, come to think of it, I have removed it in the past). I'm going to ask some other editors to comment. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

It's only a single paragraph, not an entire section. I tried to keep the paragraph as short as possible, and did more trimming based on your comment. But (as indicated in the edit summary) this was the lead-in for the article "Falun Gong-Linked Media Venture Makes Waves, Raises Questions", so it's notable. However, in thinking about it, it's more related to the issue of the relationship of the paper to Falun Gong, rather than the general history of the paper, so I've moved it to the section discussing that relationship. I can add some more information about how the incident resulted in much more attention on the ownership of the newspaper, and the relationship to Falun Gong, if you want. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I still don't think it's that relevant—it was Wang's action, not the newspaper's. It's a notable in its own right, but not necessarily notable for the Epoch Times, and it's certainly not a demonstration that the paper is in cahoots with FLG. I have asked other editors to comment. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me repeat: The incident resulted in much more attention on the ownership of the newspaper, and the relationship to Falun Gong. Look at the citations. Plus the newspaper apologized for the incident; that also establishes a link. And the denial of a relationship (which is, of course, notable) by the newspaper was in the aftermath of the incident, and explicitly related to it. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it would make sense to create a sub-section called Wenyi Wang. Simply because what she did is definitely notable, even in relation with Epoch Times since she was a reporter at that time, and even the fact that she no longer works for Epoch Times is important, because it shows something about the paper. I don't think it has anything to do with the credibility of Epoch Times and as for it's connection with Falun Gong, well she is just one person and the lead says "The newspaper was founded by Falun Gong practitioners, in response to what is regarded by human rights groups as nationwide persecution of Falun Gong by the government of the People's Republic of China, which began in 1999." I think this speaks for itself and it's clear enough. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to mention this incident and the paper's reaction, but I agree with Rjanag that it isn't principally about The Epoch Times per se, but mostly about Wang. If it weren't for the points John makes, I'd suggest the mention be dropped from the article entirely. But there are two points: it brought attention to the paper, so that's a notability thing, and then the paper's response to the incident is also informative for the reader, which is the purpose of the article (to inform, right?). Having a subsection about this is blowing it out of proportion, in my view. Putting a couple of sentence summary in the section about the paper's relationship to Falun Gong is appropriate, as to some extent it shows how the paper negotiates this relationship.--Asdfg12345 05:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You and John make good points, so I'm not completely opposed to including the incident now...but I don't think it needs two paragraphs, like it has now. A detailed summary of the incident is fine at Wenyi Wang, but here I think two or three sentences, as Asdfg suggests, should be plenty. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Okay, I've shortened the discussion from two paragraphs to one. I appreciate everyone's restraint in discussing the matter here rather than getting into an edit/revert cycle with the article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) This is a good compromise, thanks. Personally, I wouldn't mind it being even shorter, but there seems to be good consensus for more or less this rewrite, so I'm fine with it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Copyright violation by Epoch Times

I have noticed that for a while Epoch Times has been lifting "stories" regarding the Second Sino-Japanese War from English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia, and elsewhere for their publication without giving us credit. -- Миборовский 06:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The paper should provide credit to Wikipedia, but under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 and the GFDL, such reprinting is not a copyright violation.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Disputed testimonial

As far as I can tell this was sent by the reader to their website. That's not the key thing, I suppose, but the idea is that the person is a media adviser, so his title carries some weight, and he makes some comments relevant to the reliability of the newspaper. I'm not sure why it being on the paper's website is grounds for it to be inadmissible?--Asdfg12345 00:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to find an original version of the same guy's opinion, published somewhere else? That might help. Personally, I just feel like I should be wary of any testimonials that something publishes about itself, no matter who the testimonial comes from, because it's cherry-picked and for all we know the person could even have been quoted out of context. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that it is a reader of their paper who just wrote a "letter to the editor," if you know what I mean. I think we could only assume that he didn't write a longer one, mixing praise and criticism, then the newspaper chopped off the criticism and published the praise--that seems unlikely, not only because it would be skewing his intention, which a professional media outlet (we should hope) wouldn't do, but also because people write to papers with a point to make, not usually to present a nuanced analysis. I'd like it better if it was published elsewhere, too, but I imagine that's unlikely.--Asdfg12345 07:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess we could always get some other editors' opinion; WP:RS/N is probably the best place. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 08:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's do it. I'll put a quick note there now.--Asdfg12345 10:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Bam.--Asdfg12345 11:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

First sentence

I have serious issues with "The Epoch Times is a privately owned, general-interest newspaper, originally published in Chinese." The only thing that's undisputably factual about this statement is "originally published in Chinese". The newspaper itself claims that it is "privately owned", but it is widely known to be a mouthpiece of Falun Gong, and it claims that it is "general interest" while it is clear its foremost intentions are to criticize the Chinese regime. This statement, in my view, is intentionally misleading, and ironically, the source for this statement is the newspaper itself. It must be changed. I propose:

The Epoch Times is a multi-language publication affiliated with the spiritual group Falun Gong, originally published in Chinese. Colipon+(T) 18:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

That rewording looks good to me. These things are all factual and NPOV (the connection to FLG is often abused by POV-pushers, but the fact that they are affiliated is still a fact). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem in Colipon's suggested wording. But the newspaper is privately owned, even if it's been founded by Falun Gong practitioners. There is no "Falun Gong organisation" that could fund anything; that's a fact. All their money comes from private donations and advertisements, and thanks to voluntary workers, the human resources costs are close to zero. In addition, Epoch Times is not a "mouthpiece" of Falun Gong; it is not exclusively about Falun Gong related news, even if they highlight the persecution and other human rights abuses of the Chinese regime. In fact, a great majority of the news have nothing to do with Falun Gong. To prove this point correct, it would be relatively easy to make a statistical analysis of, say, all Epoch Times issues during a two week period, but that wouldn't help us here on Wikipedia. Let's just stick to reliable sources. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:59, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Notice I never said that it is a "mouthpiece" of Falun Gong, I just said that it is "widely known" as a mouthpiece of Falun Gong. I will now insert this revision. Colipon+(T) 19:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello I made the following fix: [18], because:

1. ET is privately owned, so that is definitely it's status.
2. removed the quotes from the statement that is already attributed, and the source did not use quotes. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it [19] is also a general interest newspaper, because it does not cover only 1 topic. Take a quick look to http://www.theepochtimes.com/ . --HappyInGeneral (talk) 06:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. First of all, the people above raised problems with the source for "privately owned", and besides it's not necessary in the lede; most other newspapers don't have language like that, and sticking it in there just seems like a pre-emptive POV defense against anti-Epoch Times readers. Likewise, "general-interest" is an unnecessary and poorly-defined descriptor. I think the wording was better before these two additions. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I would echo the comments of Rjanag about the "pre-emptive POV defense". Besides which, both Rjanag and Olaf had voiced their agreement to this change. This is very rare - when we can agree on something like this. I do not agree with HappyInGeneral's changes. No newspaper makes a point of calling itself "general interest" - look at NYT, People's Daily etc. The more one insists on putting "general interest" into the lead the more it seems there is to hide. I do not wish to edit war over this matter. I will revert this only once and if it is taken off again I will report this matter. These articles are all in a very delicate state, and the BRD model here has noticeably failed. Please discuss here before making any more changes - especially when previous changes have already been discussed by other editors. Colipon+(T) 14:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What would be a good source for privately owned other then [20]? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

About the "pre-emptive POV defense", as I see it you might be right here, but please consider it's context, the CCP claims that Epoch Times is Falun Gong, where it is not, it is founded by Falun Gong practitioners true, but that does not entitle it to speak for Falun Gong. Only one person can speak for Falun Gong, and that is it's founder. The CCP claims that Epoch Times is only about one subject, but if you take a quick look on it's front page you will see, that it speaks about politics, entertainment, sport, health, etc. etc. So even if it's a "pre-emptive POV defense", it's sourced, it's attributed, it's relevant then why remove it? Actually removing it goes against Wikipedia spirit and policies, because those who are doing selective removals are hiding facts. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with "privately owned" in the infobox and/or a subsection, since that does seem to be the case (and we don't have any reliable source to challenge that), and plus Olaf is correct that there isn't really any public FLG "organization" that could own it—ie, even given that it is owned by FLG practictioners, it's still owned by individuals, not by a public organization.

The problem for me is putting it in the lede; like I said above, I think it's poor (or at least awkward) writing and pre-emptive POV. Even if you think it is necessary there to counter the CCP's claims that Epoch Times "is" FLG, the fact of the matter is we're not responsible for what the CCP claims and we're not responsible for what readers come here looking for, we're only responsible for presenting a well-written article. And besides that, pointing out that it's privately-owned doesn't really defend against any claims anyway; for the reasons Olaf hinted at above, someone who believes that the Epoch Times is an FLG mouthpiece will go on believing that even if you point out that the paper is "privately-owned". The private/public status of its ownership is not really relevant to its POV. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

True. And what wording do you think it would be good to use to relay the idea that is not a one topic newspaper like just politics, or just health? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think any special wording is necessary for that. Just saying "is a newspaper" implies that it has no special focus; 'general-interest' is the default for newspapers if no specific topic is specified. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll take your word for it. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

Just put here for things that come up.

OC: why don't we saywherewegotit for the Ownby thing? I'm concerned that it's been filtered through a third party, and this rather obscures the original speaker. Attributing it clearly only adds to the accuracy. I know you're familiar with WP:V, so please 交流一下你的想法.--Asdfg12345 02:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think that the ombudsman for a major Canadian broadcaster qualifies as a reliable source, and I am certain that Ownby was not taken out of context or misinterpreted by the author. In that sense, I don't feel there is no need for the cumbersome "he said that she said that I said that the earth is round". Ohconfucius (talk) 03:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

hah. I know he's a reliable source. If it was about something he himself said, I don't think it would be a deal. I also don't think it's wrong if we be super anal about how sources are cited and used--in fact, we should be. Do you have the Future of China book? You can get some direct Ownby quotes from there. In this case, I think it would best to be faithful to whereyougotit; I'm not aware of a clause in RS that allows for skipping citations if editors think something is sufficiently reliable? If no one dissented it wouldn't be a deal, but I believe I have the right to insist on the strict citation. --Asdfg12345 04:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

note: in the edit summary, "their" should have been "his." I recently learnt that in a possessive pronoun nitpicking discussion.--Asdfg12345 04:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yep, I do happen to believe you're being excessively anal here. Is it something you believe controversial or capable of misinterpretation? because it's only really an issue if that's what you think, but it seems you're not saying that. If that citation, the preceding citation from Orville, and all the others currently treated as fact are cited in this way, we will have a much greater number of "he said that she said that I said that the earth is round", making for a really awkward read. If it's from his book, I wouldn't mind it being sourced from there, but it seems like he was cited from the interview transcripts, so it's the same as any other journalist quote. One click of the url is sufficient to show what it is - it's not some party relaying the original source (like the K&M links we were talking about). What's more, the direct quote I inserted to the reference is still there. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Intro

Dear editors, please, please, please stop removing the reference that Epoch Times is Falun-Gong affiliated. And please stop re-inserting specific, promotional material into the lede. Colipon+(Talk) 08:27, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Not exclusively Chinese focussed

"Its stated focus is coverage of China and human rights issues" - China does turn up frequently in The Epoch Times, but most of the content is of more general interest. This should be pointed out. The ET has general international news coverage - the copy I picked up the other day, for example, had most of a page devoted to a travel article about various Italian cities.

They have free copies in the library here, and I quite often pick them up. I tend to steer clear of the PRC related content because I know the paper has an agenda in that direction.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Lede modified in light of this concern. Colipon+(Talk) 17:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyone knows who funds this newspaper?

I'm seeing a lot of Christian ads and articles on its pages, and the day after Obama got his Nobel, they ran a front-page headline proclaiming an 80% opposition rate in the U.S. to the award. The text of the article stated that the figure came from a WSJ.com online poll. Imagine Reason (talk) 15:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

note about Epoch Press

I'm not sure how this got in, but it's not relevant to the subject. The Epoch Times is a company. The Epoch Press is another company. The only connection between them is that the latter prints the newspapers of the former. It also prints a lot of other stuff. They're separate businesses, however, with a similar name. The inclusion here doesn't make sense, so I removed it.--Asdfg12345 23:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I remember bringing this up several months ago: Talk:The Epoch Times/Archive 2#Stuff shortened. I thought we had a pretty long discussion, but actually it looks pretty brief. It might be useful to have another, wider discussion now. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The Epoch Press is inextricably linked to the Epoch Times. There is no need to deny this. The fact that it operates other publications is simply part of a wider Falun Gong public relations scheme to make all of their organizations and companies look as "normal" and "non-Falun Gong related" as possible. I refuse to play another protracted, unproductive game with Falun Gong SPAs. It's extremely ironic that what is being censored from the article is a segment about censorship. Colipon+(Talk) 02:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The Falun Gong are very good at playing the "plausible deniability" game when it suits them, just like they tried for so long to deny the links between NTDTV, Sound of Hope, The Epoch Times. Those denials were smashed when someone incontrovertibly identified leading Falun Gong members, er, practitioners on those boards. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Would you guys mind substantiating those claims? You need a source to claim a connection between Epoch Press and The Epoch Times; prima facie they are unrelated companies. Unless you have something saying they're the same company, it doesn't belong on this page. The onus is on the people wanting to introduce the material. And you don't need to bring out an anti-Falun Gong screed every time these questions come up. Just deal with policy and sources, please.--Asdfg12345 23:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

again removed this. No one challenged what I say above. Please do not reinstate the material unless you can give a credible response. (by that I mean, with a source!)--Asdfg12345 02:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

oh and about Falun Gong denying the NTD/Epoch Times connection--I don't get it either. I don't see how it's particularly related to this, though. I think the censorship controversy is on the "outside mainland" China page anyway.--Asdfg12345 02:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody is willing to discuss this any further and explain how the section is not an original synthesis of material, I have removed it from the article. As I see it, claiming that the Epoch Press equals to the Epoch Times is just another association fallacy. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 23:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Free no more?

A couple of places in the article it is stated that The Epoch Times is distributed free of charge. That used to be true here (in Seattle) and may still be true elsewhere, but currently in Seattle it is mostly distributed through newspaper sales boxes that charge 50 cents. fwiw --Haruo (talk) 22:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Changes by User:PCPP

PCPP, you are editing against consensus again. The business in the text in question has no connection to ET; including it here is an original synthesis. You need to show how they are the same company according to reliable sources. I will not revert because I refuse to edit war, but you need to produce an RS showing how they're the same company, or the text can be removed by anyone. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 22:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Adding back content that is known to be controversial, with no explanation, is disruptive and clear edit-warring behavior. Perhaps PCPP thinks he can keep on trying every couple months without breaking 3RR, but trying to avoid discussion like that is not going to help anyone. I have removed the content; if anyone wants, they can discuss it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Rjanag, please add your voice to the RfC. This individual has been doing this for years. I have learnt to live with it, but there are some outsiders newly taking an interest in the Falun Gong pages, and I do not want them to be deterred by such bad behaviour. PCPP needs to be forced to stop editing any CCP or Falun Gong related pages. Please take a look at the evidence, and at least, you could document this instance. But it's only one part of a disturbing trend. Falun Gong SPAs were banned for far, far less.

Regarding the material itself, it's obviously original research. No source connects the two companies. PCPP knows it, so he doesn't discuss but just reverts. --Asdfg12345 23:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Since you were the one who initiated the RfC, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment there just now—it might be seen as canvassing. You are free to use the diff of my message above as evidence, though, if you want. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you click through and look? I thought the point of an RfC is to open up discussion. If everyone is worried about being politically correct, there's no point doing it. It's basically just for an open debate, and I just suggested you add your voice, according to your discretion and experience. A number of outside editors have already done that (some of them completely off topic but that's another issue). I wouldn't worry about someone trying to mar you with a pro-Falun Gong brush or something--that wouldn't happen. --Asdfg12345 23:26, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is a mess of bias and original research. I'm taking a large scythe to it now. Homunculus (duihua) 00:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

That's done. I deleted whatever I found that had no source, or whose sole or primary source for substantiating some point was Epoch Times articles themselves (or other Falungong journals). Wikipedia isn't a place for original research. I also altered some of the language per NPOV. I would imagine that there could be more balance in the opinions section, but I'm not about to spend time following that up. Homunculus (duihua) 00:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

There was a whole section on John Liu that was sourced and none of it considered OR. I noticed parts of it were deleted, but the final sentence was maintained... I think you might have to go back to your surgery of the article and make it a bit more fluid and readable. Colipon+(Talk) 01:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe that for the most part Epoch Times is not a reliable source on what is notable about itself. The John Liu information is only notable because other sources have reported it. I only left the last line because that's the only thing I'm aware of traceable to another source. I'm fine with your change to the lead. Better to keep it simple. I agree with your final sentence, and will do that. Homunculus (duihua) 01:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Well done for stepping in, Homunculus. the article has been at the mercy of anti-Falun Gong activists for quite a while, and they don't follow wikipedia policy unless they are forced to. It's understandable that you don't want to go searching for other sources, but here are some recommendations. See this link: http://www.straightgoods.ca/2010/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=554&Cookies=yes, secondly, there is some material from Jiao Guobiao on the main page that is relevant. If I come up with anything else I'll let you know. My six month ban will be up soon, too, so I look forward to helping out directly. --Asdfg12345 12:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Asdfg12345, I cannot access that link. Note that I removed the promotional remarks from the top of the page, because they were unrelated to improving the article and unrelated to Wikipedia. Advocating for the subject of the articles is OK on blogs, but that should not form an important part of the discussion here. I'm unsure if this was an appropriate step. If someone thinks that was wrong, please restore them. Homunculus (duihua) 01:52, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I recently read through this page and was moved to make a number of changes. I've become quite familiar with this whole situation over the last several months, and I cannot believe the inaccuracies and outright biases that were and are extant on this page. I have done something to fix some of them, but I will continue researching this topic and make changes accordingly. The removals I made were of outdated material; most revisions were in the direction of removing the anti-Falungong and anti-Epochtimes bias.—Zujine|talk 03:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm moving Chang's remark to the Falungong article because it is mainly about Falungong and only a bit about Epochtimes. —Zujine|talk 05:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it belongs to Falun Gong outside Mainland China. Just took care of it. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Generally I think these changes are welcome, but I intend to make some modifications; I'm not such a fan of this newspaper. The article did have significant issues though, which you're at least addressing. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 06:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

What is going on here? Why are people edit warring? I made a series of edits last week, which were the beginning of my trying to make this page respectable. I find that they were first attacked, then an edit war ensued. I find this conduct highly unprofessional and rather off-putting. Is it that both anti-FLG and pro-FLG people do not want outsiders contributing to the pages? I simply won't work on pages that are being battled over like this. I find PCPP most at fault, however, for using specious claims to reject edits that he didn't like, not engaging in discussion, and reverting against whatever consensus there was. Poor form indeed. —Zujine|talk 17:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I've made my reasons in the edit summaries I've provided. If you disagree with them you're certainly welcome to leave me a message asking for explaination. What I do not like is to have all of my edits blindly reverted by two FLG single purpose accounts, who were previously given 6-month blocks, and suddenly show up at the same time to engage in edit warring.

While I do not disagree with all of your additions, I reverted some of your changes because I disagree with them, and I do not think it's a good idea to balance perceived bias with more bias from the other side. Some of my issues include:

• Michael Savage. Savage is a talking head, not a respectable academic source. Making a passing judgement of Epoch Times does not automatically warrant his inclusion per WP:RS, especially in the same statement Savage admitted that he never read the paper before.

• John Miller. Again, I removed several sentences because they're pure opinions from Miller's editorialization. The paragraph reads much better if it stuck to the actual case Miller mentioned.

• I moved awards section up to the coverage and focus section because they're out of place in the assessment section.

• Rob Anders. From viewing the provided sources, the story has little to do with the Epoch Times, and more about accusations of links between the Chinese government and the local Chinese community.

• Maria Chang. I disagree with your removal of her views, especially considering that it wasn't move to another article as you claimed. I've moved her commentary to the political stance section, as I feel that it has more relevancy there.

So there you go. I'm more than happy to discuss further changes and enquiries.PCPP (talk) 17:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

HappyInGeneral has responded below, but here are my responses to your points: 1) Savage seems fine to comment here; he's a well-known commentator that a lot of people listen to, he is influential, and has had a long New Yorker profile about him, etc.; clearly an influential fellow; 2) Miller's editorialisation is itself significant, given his stature in the Canadian media sphere; look him up. 3) The awards are part of this newspaper's 'assessment'; 4) The point is that the Epoch got quoted by a number of other media, which indicates their credibility and influence on the topic; 4) Maria Chang's comments are more relevant to Falungong itself, rather than this media group. I originally meant to move them, but forgot. It seems one of the "FLG single purpose accounts", as you so eloquently label Olaf_Stephanos and HappyInGeneral, moved it to another page, which I agree with. Thank you for your time. —Zujine|talk 18:10, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

1)Sorry, but how does this fit WP:RS? Notability and reliability are two separate issues, and we aren't discussing the notability of the paper here. My previous point still stands.

2)Same with my previous point. The sentence opened with "Epoch Times has been vindicated", which is clearly part of Miller's editorial, yet the paragraph does not clearly state this.

3)Assessments are critical analysis of the paper. The awards paragraph didn't even mention this, so why am I not allowed to move it elsewhere?

4)Again, the problem here is not the notability of the newspaper. There's thousands of news reports out there that mentions activities the Epoch Times, but that doesn't pass for critical analysis.

5)There you go dodging my questions again. And it's funny that Olaf immediately moved the section right after I posted my previous discussion, disregarding my objections to the move.

Sorry but I strongly disagree with your changes. And I certainly don't need my EDITS REVERTED IMMEDIATELY BY THE SAME PEOPLE THAT WERE BLOCKED 6 MONTHS FOR SUCH BEHAVIORPCPP (talk) 18:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you are too invested in this topic, then. Regarding 1), if you are claiming that Savage is not an RS for his views on Epoch, that would have to be taken up elsewhere; we disagree. 2) Miller, broadly, makes the case that "the Epoch was vindicated", though you are right that he does not say that. That is called a "précis". If you can think of a better précis, we could use it. 3) I don't see why assessments are only critical analysis and not also simply remarks about how it has been received; the reception of awards would appear to be part of how the publication has been 'assessed' by the public. However, if you really want to move them, fine. 4) I believe the important point here is that it was only after Anders' interview with Epoch that that story was widely publicised in Canadian media, and it came on the tail-end of a series of publicity coups for the Canadian editors of Epoch, so it warrants a mention; failing to note how the publication is influencing other media would be remiss of us, especially when the evidence in this case is quite clear. 5) Is this the Maria Chang dispute? It relates to Falungong, more than to Epoch itself. That's my view. I'm concerned with how personal things seem to be getting in editing this page. This is an intellectual exercise, not a yelling match or chance to exercise dominance.—Zujine|talk 18:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

How so? I'm tired of having every of my edits scrutinized and blindly reverted by the same group of people.

1) As I said, Savage is not an expert on FLG or even the paper, and the problem here is not notability but reliability. His passing commentry has no place in the critical analysis section. Per WP:SPS, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions"

2) That statement borderlines on WP:SYN. Miller's views are those of himself's, and has nowhere "won it credibility among other media groups and in the legal system" as you claimed.

3) As I stated, the awards paragraph only noted the paper receiving such awards, not how or why. It follows on better on the reporting styles section.

4) How so? According to the two sources you provided, neither mentioned the Epoch Times until the very end. [21] The Vancouver Sun article is largely about disputes between the two Canadian parties over alleged spying by foreign governments, and [22] The Vancoucer Courier's report covers criticism of the allegations by the local Chinese community. Ander's comments were only mentioned as "adding fuel to the fire" - neither Anders or the Epoch Times instigated the reports, as you claimed.

5) And Maria Chang details Epoch Times as one of the various branches of FLG used to survive in a Western society. This is highly relevant to the foundings section, perhaps more so that some of your additions. I'm planning to add it back.-PCPP (talk) 19:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I think we may be going around in circles, and it's clear that you're not someone who is about to be convinced (having now checked your contributions, the previous RfC, etc.); you may be used to battling head-to-head with people who have the opposite agenda to you, but I'm really not used to it, and do not want to do that. So I don't have more to add. Although, just on your point 4), Anders' interview with Epoch led to several other articles in other publications, some of them mentioned above; the CBC also did an interview. All that news with Anders only happened after Epoch did their interview, so they set off that chain of media attention, and it shows their influence, in Canada, on that issue (their interview ws cleverly timed, one might notice, given how Hu had recently visited Canada, and given Fadden's comments). But I'm not going to argue around in circles. You obviously brook no compromise, so I will let you and the Falungong editors fight it out. When you're all banned I might start editing again. Have fun! —Zujine|talk 01:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Changes by User:PCPP - blind revert, why?

Hello PCPP, please let me explain my edits:

19:30, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral (25,525 bytes) (change wording per source)

• [23] Epoch Times does not ask for people to 'renounce' CCP, it asks them to quit and I provided a source for that. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:31, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral m (25,524 bytes) (fix it's name not group)

• [24] Minor edit, fixed the reference. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:33, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral m (25,523 bytes) (technical, fix link)

• [25] minor edit, here the link had an extra space making it look wrong in the reference list. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:39, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral (25,453 bytes) (›Reporting style: the source does not mention how often Epoch Times is mentioned in the media)

• [26] I checked the source and the source makes no mention of how often Epoch Times is mentioned in the media. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:42, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral (25,943 bytes) (›Reporting style: about Canadian MP Rob Anders)

• [27] This source explains how the Canadian government was influenced to grant limited access to Epoch Times. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:48, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral (30,327 bytes) (›Assessments: add back sourced assessments)

• [28] Since this is the assessment section I think John Gordon Miller has a say here. Also Michael Savage (who is commentator not politician, and I'll fix that shortly) who has an 8 million audience, is prominent enough to be mentioned, with his opinion which is attributed correctly to him. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:49, 24 August 2010 HappyInGeneral (28,860 bytes) (›Coverage and focus: remove redundant paragraph)

• [29] This paragraph was already present bellow so I removed it. I think this paragraph belongs to the assessment section. Do you find this edit objectionable?

19:50, 24 August 2010 PCPP (25,943 bytes) (Undid unexplained reverts) (rollback | undo)

• As you see above the edits where already explained somewhat in the edit summaries. I asked at each edit above "Do you find this edit objectionable?", which is perhaps repetitive and annoying but actually you did do a blind revert and now I'm actually giving you a room to explain which edit you feel is out of place and why.

PS: sorry for the last revert, I did not actually mean it. You see, I selected in firefox several links and I wanted to open them in separate tabs, but one of them was the rollback link, and that is the one that did it. Anyway since it is already done, before reverting back, would you please explain which edit you find objectionable? Thank you very much. Best Regards, --HappyInGeneral (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Care to explain why you slowly reverted all of my previous changes (without discussion) [30], and have Olaf coincidentally show up to assist you in further reverts? You're engaging in the same behavior that got your 6-month ban, I might add.-PCPP (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

You have my reasons and attempt of discussion above. For the rest of your comment I'll be candid enough to observe WP:NPA. My best to you --HappyInGeneral (talk) 15:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Please point out where I issued personal attacks? I've already had several discussions with Zujine above. You're simply repeating all of his arguments and repeating ad nauseum.--PCPP (talk) 11:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that refers to "You're engaging in the same behavior that got your 6-month ban," which pretty much does violated WP:TPG, if nothing else. I would appreciate a clear indication on this page of exactly what material is being questioned, on the basis of what sources, and what the proposed changes are and how they would fix the problems. John Carter (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

PCPP, your recent edit is this: [31]. I can see that some of it adds value, but I don't understand the reason for the several deletions of important details. I have painstakingly picked through them and reinstored a few details each time, pending a detailed explanation from yourself as to why those details should be deleted, and how their deletion enhances the article. You may find it useful to look at that diff above to see all your changes. Perhaps because you made them one by one, you did not notice how much you removed. Thank you. —Zujine|talk 19:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have examined the competing edits. I think it's clear that Zujine is being patient and responsible. PCPP's edits seem like an attempt to keep away information he does not like, or to remove important and relevant details that speak favourably of The Epoch Times. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 22:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Zujine: I've already answered most of your questions in the previous section - you're going around in circles here. I've even left much of your material in there, and yet you still haven't answered my previous questions. I find it hypocritical that you can just walk in and change/remove large sections under the guise of "clean-up", yet that I have to explain myself to you whenever edit. I had enough.--PCPP (talk) 07:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

And this is getting more ridiculous - I'm not even allowed to summarize a damn quote?

From:

"When Hu Jintao visited Canada in June 2010, the Toronto Star noted that the Epoch Times had: "been publishing some hard-hitting stories in advance of Hu’s visit, including a report on how the Chinese embassy in Ottawa was orchestrating demonstrations in support of the president while he was here." The article went on to note how the Times had obtained a recording of a speech given by Liu Shaohua, the first secretary of the education section at the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, while speaking to a crowd of about 40-50 students receiving Chinese state-scholarships to study in Canada. "In the Epoch Times story, Liu is quoted as saying the embassy is covering the cost of hotel, travel and food for what was estimated to be 3,000 people who were expected to welcome Hu," the Star reported."

to: "During Hu Jintao's visit to Canada in June 2010, the Toronto Star noted that the Epoch Times had published several critical stories, such as allegations of the local Chinese embassy's orchestration of welcome demonstrations, as well as an alleged recording of a speech by the first secretary of education Liu Shaohua, proving accommodation for participants in the welcome parade."

And your addition on Anders is complete OR:

"The CBC and other Canadian media also carried interviews with outspoken Canadian MP Rob Anders, after an exclusive interview with Epoch Times wherein Anders alleged that the CCP uses gifts, business deals and women to influence Canadian political decisions."

vs

"The paper also carried an exclusive interview with outspoken Canadian MP Rob Anders, wherein Anders alleged that the Chinese government used gifts and business deals in attempts to influence Canadian political decisions."

And Michael Savage isn't even a expert on politics - he a talking head that never read an issue of the Epoch Times until 2010. By your logic, we should also add Rick Ross and James Randi's opinions on Falun Gong, right?--PCPP (talk) 07:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the analysis. My question is why it is helpful to reduce the detail in the first example you cite? I do not know these other two people you mentioned, but Michael Savage is a noted conservative political commentator. Of course, he's not popular in my circle, and I find much of what he says downright repulsive. I first heard of him from a piece in the New Yorker. His jingoistic views on many issues are popular among Americans. He is relevant here because he is a political commentator, and as far as I'm concerned The Epoch is primarily a political newspaper. Michael Savage's views on Falun Gong would not be useful for Wikipedia, however. Regarding Chang, you are saying that a consensus has not been reached, but could you explain how that differs from simply saying "I disagree"? To me the quote doesn't make sense to begin with: what does it mean to say "for FLG to survive..."? Secondly, it seems more related to Falungong in the first place, so it should go on some regular FLG page. Maybe you can explain your view.—Zujine|talk 19:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is the fully quote by Chang from the source:

"Political scientist Maria Hsia Chang of the University of Nevada, Reno, author of a book on Falun Gong, says the movement "seems to be treating organisations it has created, such as The Epoch Times, as front organisations to influence public opinion via a concerted information-PR-propaganda campaign".

The most charitable explanation she is able to offer for this strategy "is that Falun Gong's decision-makers are products of the political-social environment in China", where to survive, the movement has to create organisations that are publicly unaffiliated with it.

Such strategies are counterproductive in democratic societies. "Being secretive and deceptive will just play into the image they're a kooky group with something to hide," Chang says."--PCPP (talk) 17:50, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned about using Chang as a source here, because a) it is mostly about Falun Gong and thus does not belong here, b) Chang's view on Falun Gong as an "organisation" that has to "survive" by establishing "organisations that are publicly unaffiliated with it" is a minority viewpoint, or at least very strongly disputed by other scholars. Many researchers have pointed out that there is no central Falun Gong organisation, aside from a network of voluntary coordinators and other volunteers. Using Chang as a source here – separated from the larger academic struggle on how Falun Gong practitioners are perceived and actually operate in society – would be highly misleading. And since we cannot turn this page into a Falun Gong article, such major disputes should be kept on their respective pages where all relevant points of view can be described in detail. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 23:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Got any proof that Chang's views are "of a minority"? Your claims borderlines WP:SYN. And Chang's views here are solely presented as her opinions as an academic, not as fact. There is a serious double standard here to dismiss her views yet let a media commentator's views stay.--PCPP (talk) 17:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Ownby, Porter, Palmer.... none of them characterise Falun Gong as an "organisation". Chang's position is not supported by any fieldwork. Saying that some kind of "Falun Gong organisation" has set up a "publicly unaffiliated" newspaper to "survive" is truly an extreme point of view, and giving it such prominence outside the relevant dispute is certainly a case of WP:UNDUE. It belongs to Falun Gong outside mainland China. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 00:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, your claims are completely synthesised original research. Ownby's statements are of his personal position - they are not facts. Chang's statement's simply points out her different position on the matter - and it's up to the reader to decide. Considering Chang's position as a political scientist and an author of a Falun Gong research paper, her views indeed carry weight as per WP:NPOV. This seems to be another case of your habit of deleting anything critical of Falun Gong.--PCPP (talk) 19:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Olaf_Stephanos's argument was that Chang's view is a minority view, I believe; I think you ought to attempt to refute that. You are right that Ownby's statements are his view, and Chang's are her view, but you fail to note the complexity and depth of the dispute (of how Falungong is to be conceived: as an 'organization', or as a 'group of people and set of teachings'). Olaf seems to be arguing that the former is the mainstream, common view, held by most academics and by those who have done field work. The latter is held by Chang.
I find his argument convincing, simply because it is obviously true that Falungong is not an organization, and is, in fact, primarily a set of practices and religious teachings that people study/do. You are not engaging in the substance of that dispute, merely asserting that Chang's view should be included. But is her statement accurate? Does it make sense? And what about the rest of the literature on the topic?
On all of these points you have not engaged. I won't say too much more, merely that from my perspective, one could just as easily observe of PCPP that "This seems to be another case of your habit of adding anything critical of Falun gong." —Zujine|talk 01:07, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Riiiight, first you claim that Ownby's statements are his personal views, and now the claim that "FLG is not an organization" is "true". Sorry, the inclusion criteria on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth - regardless of the personal views, and it's up to the reader to decide on what is "true". Coming from you, there is serious double standard to allow the views of Savage, a person that has absolutely no qualifications on FLG, and a reader's letter from a self proclaimed expert, yet disqualify the views of a political scientist who wrote about FLG. What happened to "addressing all viewpoints" as you proclaimed on the Shenyun page, or does it only apply to pro-FLG views? I am questioning Olaf's statements as being synthesized original research and a case of trying to discrediting the source. Consider the points raised in the previous arbitration case, I am within rights to question Olaf's arguments. Furthermore, if you want to play the game, I can further add that your so called "improvements" to this article consists of nothing but adding pro-FLG bias.--PCPP (talk) 04:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear... I simply meant that in the view of the authoritative sources, FLG is a spiritual practice/group rather than a formal organization; Chang's viewpoint is not the mainstream in this regard, and her comments implicate a whole separate dispute about the nature of FLG. That's the primary complaint, as far as I can tell. If you can show that Savage's views contain a series of presuppositions about the nature of The Epoch that are contradicted by majority sources, then I would have the same problem with him. Do you see the point? On your last comment, I'm not here to play games... and this is getting a little too confrontational for my tastes. —Zujine|talk 15:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Not to forget: the other primary problem was that what Chang says mostly related to Falun Gong, not The Epoch Times. Savage does not suffer that problem, either. For those interested in engaging in this, I would prefer that they looked at these points of dispute and analysed them, rather than simply throwing their hat in the pro or anti-FLG ring. —Zujine|talk 16:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no rule (and it is not common practice) that a source has to be primarily about the topic of an article to be cited in it. Indeed, many of the sources in this article mention The Epoch Times only in passing. For example, a BBC story, "Bush presses China over currency", gives only a paragraph or two to an Epoch Times reporter. I would only understand this argument if Falun Gong had nothing to do with the Epoch Times, which it seems that only the Epoch Times denies. Quigley (talk) 21:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The article reads like an opinion piece, not an encyclopedia entry

The article should be rewritten, it contains personal opinions of its writers which is not what encyclopedias are for. JanBielawski (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

You will need to be much, much more specific than that. Grayfell (talk) 23:42, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, I agree that this request should be much more specific, I also tend to agree with JanBielawski that this article in its current state, does a good job of representing a single perspective on a handful of issues which deserve other perspectives in order to reach the ideal NPOV. I'm going to dive into a few specific sections/comments as I have time to see if I can help putting some meat on the bones of what JanBielawski is referring to. Shinerite (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I would just like to second this. This article contains a number of factual inaccuracies which appear designed to discredit it (such as claiming continued qanon support or repeated use of the phrase far-right), and it generally reads like the Chinese government or a competing paper is intentionally trying to discredit them. It's a center-right paper that reports on a lot of international issues, similar to the NYT but smaller and leaning right instead of left. It reflects poorly on Wikipedia when articles are so blatantly biased. 50.204.125.186 (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia summarizes reliable and independent sources, not original research. Your personal opinions about this paper are original research, and are not relevant to improving this article. Grayfell (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

File:Wikipedia scale of justice3.jpg

A false balance

All opinions are not equal, so the scales, and our content, should be allowed to tip so they represent that fact.

JanBielawski and 50.204.125.186, Grayfell is correct. You may not understand how Wikipedia works. The basic premise of Wikipedia is to give "free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Jimmy Wales[32] (bold added). That literally does mean "ALL" information, not just facts. That includes opinions, beliefs, lies, conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific nonsense, etc. We are inclusionist by nature and try to document as much as possible. If something has been said or written in a RS, it becomes potential (note that word) content here. While we definitely do not treat different types of "human knowledge" in the same way, we do try to document its existence. There is an exception. If a topic is never mentioned in any RS, then it's not notable enough for an article or mention. "What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse." It isn't." Jimbo Wales[33] To learn more about our NPOV policy, feel free to read my essay here: NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content . -- Valjean (talk) 22:52, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe that referring to the Epoch Times as far right is inaccurate and strictly opinion. This part of the article should be removed. Facts are fine but personal opinion delegitimizes the piece. DavidGinBC (talk) 17:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

By the way if the Epoch Times is categorized as far right, CNN should be referred to as far left and inaccurate. DavidGinBC (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

We do not remove well-sourced text because some person has the opinion that the text is just an opinion. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Controversies/bias

By main stream media (and some popular political scientist -- see above), the Epoch Times is seen as a journalistic arm of the Falun Gong. The Falun Gong, however, have regularly been treated poorly by the Chinese Communist Party. It is known to have suffered many human rights abuses and, in response, to have held passive meditations and sit-ins (see Amnesty International reports here https://faluninfo.net/amnesty-international/ or United Nations report here: http://www.falunhr.org/reports/2010/2010UN-Reports.pdf). Understandably then, Falun Gong followers have been less sympathetic or forgiving of China's human rights abuses than the international community. This is their bias; it is based on real persecution. That being said, it is a bias that counters otherwise friendly-bias in coverage on and relations between China and the U.S. and China and Europe in terms of trade (see example here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/08/07/why-republicans-dont-push-back-on-trumps-china-tariffs-in-one-map/). While China remains a major human rights violator, much of the main stream media supports continued friendly trade relations with them. This is a bias as well. The Epoch Times counters that bias. -- Written by a Ph.D. in Political Science — Preceding unsigned comment added by Albgd4 (talk • contribs) 15:24, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

The bias is not because of religious issues, but because of its problematic relationship to factuality. Any source which "has become known for its support of U.S. President Donald Trump and favorable coverage of far-right politicians in Europe; a 2019 report showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign." has to deny facts and push conspiracy theories to hold such positions. -- Valjean (talk) 15:39, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Good points, Valjean. It's important to remember that the newspaper was observed to be counterfactual long before Trump was elected. The Epoch Times would be more respected by impartial observers if they printed the truth instead of their viewpoint. It doesn't matter how much they have suffered at the hands of the Communists. Binksternet (talk) 15:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

It is statements such as these (from all sides) that are practically the definition of bias and hinders the finding of truth:

"Any source which "has become known for its support of U.S. President Donald Trump and favorable coverage of far-right politicians in Europe...has to deny facts and push conspiracy theories to hold such positions."

This is no way to find or promote truth, regardless of being painted extreme left, extreme right, or anything above it or below. Godsfunambulator (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

You may find Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth to be a helpful read. As talk pages are not intended to be general discussion forums, let's also try to focus on the article content, instead of our personal opinions on The Epoch Times or the Falun Gong. — Newslinger talk 01:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with it. We should focus more on whether the content of Wikipedia is reliable, rather than expose personal opinion on it. There are different newspaper and other media founded by different groups, among which are groups with special missions and belief. It doesn't matter what their background is, but the reliability that really matters.LoftusCH (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I wanted to touch on the section specifically titled "Controveries" where I added a tag, as this section needs some work to represent varying perspectives in order to represent a NPOV. In general, much of the section is reliable, but there is much written "between the lines" that leans extraordinarily left. I think moving much of the content that has already been written should be moved out of the "Controversies" section. Eg. Supporting Trump is a factual, not a controversial stance (or is it?  ;) Happy to help clean this up a bit. Shinerite (talk) 22:49, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

You'll need to provide specific examples. The section looks objective to me. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:14, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The statement “If someone is unfortunately infected with the CCP virus, we suggest that he or she sincerely says ‘down with the CCP.’ Maybe a miracle will happen.” is described as "claimed that COVID-19 patients can potentially be cured by "condemning the CCP."" Perhaps something like "suggested patients condemn the CCP and hope for a miracle." would be more accurate and less POV. Darkestaxe (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

The section "Removal of The BL (The Beauty of Life) from Facebook" reads like five paragraphs of "BL is so sneaky that Epoch must be just as sneaky because Snopes says they're totally connected and they tried to deny it. So facebook banned them both and a think-tank pointed out how crazy it all is!" As a wikipedia-reader who doesn't know anything about BL nor read Epoch Times I'm unconvinced that Epoch Times and BL are at all connected beyond running in the same circles. As an ardent Trump hater and liberal/left voter I am convinced however that this section was written by someone who has less patience for MAGA conspiracies then I do, probably thinks Snopes is reliable because they generally agree with Snopes anyway, and considers commentary from left-wing think tanks on the topic worth mentioning in a Wikipedia article. Darkestaxe (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

All the facebook removal sections could maybe be combined into a single section. Simply list which other groups are claimed or suggested to be linked to Epoch Times and when and why each was ultimately removed. This article is about The Epoch Times, not it's affiliates. Epochs actual connections to any of them as well as their shared connections Falun Gong are only relevant as they relate to Epoch. Darkestaxe (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Shinerite, backing Trump because you agree with his policies is one thing, but backing Trump because you think he will hasten the divine final battle is another. The Falun Gong is in the latter group.[34] The controversy section is not explicit enough, in my opinion. It should be telling the reader more about the crazy ideas of Falun Gong (aliens invented airplanes and computers... people can levitate) and tying them into their real-world political practices. Binksternet (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Binksternet, you just used an NBC article about a conservative group as the basis for how crazy that group is, in a talk section about bias. FOX and NBC/CNN are both thoroughly evil institutions that both push extremist views and ideologies cooked up by wealthy bad actors designed to keep the populace in line, according to FOX and NBC/CNN. FOX and NBC/CNN report that they are driven by a desire to bring about the destruction of modern society and usher in a new dark age dominated by blood-fueled rage and hatred of all things good. They paint a cinematic style dystopia of carnage and sorrow where all dreams of freedom, liberty, honesty, hope and justice are lost; A promised land of terror they always promise the other(s) can take us to, but none seems to want to accept responsibility for the other(s) promises. Until they start to temper their promises, perhaps we should temper who we trust to promise us nutjobs and hellscapes. Darkestaxe (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

If you think NBC and CNN are evil I can't help you. Goodbye. Binksternet (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Binksernet, I have no idea where you got the idea I think any of them are actually evil. I don't. You pointed to an NBC article about The Epoch Times as evidence that The Epoch Times supports Trump based on Falon Gong beliefs in QAnon 'theories'. I'm just saying don't trust one propaganda source about another.Darkestaxe (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

You said "FOX and NBC/CNN are both thoroughly evil" so that's how I "got the idea" you think they are evil. Your own words.

If you take the viewpoint that NBC and CNN are evil or even just unreliable propaganda then you are operating outside of Wikipedia consensus, and you will discover that you exert no leverage here with your arguments. You can see a list of frequently used sources at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, each one with an evaluation of how reliable they are. Note that NBC and CNN are well-regarded, while Fox News is not reliable for political or scientific claims. Binksternet (talk) 20:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Accusations of Publication being "Far-right"

I had a recent edit removed with a warning regarding The Epoch Times. I did not change anything except reverting the first paragraph back to a version from merely 2 weeks ago. Wikipedia was once a neutral platform for exploring information regarding certain topics, but it has recently transfigured into a hit-piece machine under the guise of some nebulous concept of "consensus" thanks to people who pretend to be "neutral" or sometimes have the literal username "neutrality."

It goes to show that this platform gives preference to people who spend the whole lives editing articles (for the edit counts) than to people who actually have knowledge or desire to remain unbiased regarding a topic.

How come the old "consensus" is different from the new "consensus" without any indication of actual discussion? How come The Epoch Times suddenly become "far-right" overnight with the old version enough to get you a warning? This is evidence of blatant bias of the highest degree.

Funny enough, none of the sources you cited described The Epoch Times as "far-right" per se. Only that the "German edition has aligned with the far-right." Hence the "consensus" interpretation thereof is rooted in deep seated bias against the publication and is not even derived from any of the (already biased) sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Creepercast888 (talk • contribs)

Propose a change, and support your proposal with reasoned arguments based on published sources.

If you don't do that, your post here is trolling, a useless rant about supposed Wikipedia bias. I almost removed it for that reason.

Please read WP:TALK#OBJECTIVE, and stick to objective facts. Binksternet (talk) 05:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

The Epoch Times is not a "far-right" (Nazi) news organization, and this needs to be changed immediately.

@Creepercast888: Please read the sources that Newslinger cited here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times#cite_note-12 Llll5032 (talk) 16:28, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe they should be described as far-right, but perhaps leans right. In reading their articles, the issue is story choice. This is my source.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/epoch-times-media-bias Yarior (talk) 13:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 February 2021

In the first sentence of the Wikipedia page for the Epoch Times, it is stated "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." This is simply untrue that they are a far-right organization and they had an independent media bias rater to conduct a blind bias test. The results concluded that their bias is between center to lean-right bias. None of the sources used for the claim that they are "far-right" present any actual evidence, but rather the sources contain people claiming they are "far-right" or just statements that they may disagree with, which in no way makes them far-right. I would like this to be changed to "The Epoch Times is a moderate to right-leaning international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement, based in Midtown Manhattan." Source: 2001:569:7FEB:F400:94E2:2754:8BE8:DE2A (talk) 01:43, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

References

 Not done: The far-right descriptor is supported by 11 reliable sources, including two high-quality academic sources. AllSides uses "Community Feedback" as a component of its ratings, which is user-generated. — Newslinger talk 01:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The blind survey is user-generated, which should not be included according WP rules. But their Full Editorial Review is not, and it's done by their board members. In my opinion, this is the perhaps one of the most neutral and comprehensive review ever given on the Epoch Times, while the currently cited sources display substantial bias and lack content evaluation, as the IP noted. Thomas Meng (talk) 03:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Note Thomas Meng's edit history: This user has a long history of pro-Falun Gong editing on Wikipedia. Of course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with this comment. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

AllSides has been rejected as unreliable in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 278 § Is Allsides.com a reliable source? and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 290 § Ad Fontes Media and AllSides. It is also not an academic source, as Kaiser (2019) and Weisskircher (2020) are. — Newslinger talk 04:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newslinger:, if you are not already watching New Tang Dynasty Television, I recommend also adding that to your watch list. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I've commented at Talk:New Tang Dynasty Television § "Far-right" descriptor?, although my position differs from yours. — Newslinger talk 04:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I've self-reverted after reading your comment there. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 February 2021

The Epoch Times is a "Lean Right" news organization. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/epoch-times-media-bias, https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings#ratings HelloTokyo1 (talk) 22:15, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: AllSides has been rejected as unreliable in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 278 § Is Allsides.com a reliable source? and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 290 § Ad Fontes Media and AllSides. It is also not an academic source, as Kaiser (2019) and Weisskircher (2020) are. Please see #Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 February 2021. — Newslinger talk 22:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I do not understand what is going on here. The Epoch Times is a far-right group. This is a fact, not someone's opinion. There is no controversy about what they are. Gentleman wiki (talk) 01:52, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 11 March 2021

The first line needs to be changed. It currently reads:

“The Epoch Times is a far-right[12] international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement.[17]“

According to allsides.com (https://www.allsides.com/news-source/epoch-times-media-bias), it is not far-right nor alt-right. It has a right-leaning bias. MikeyBoy88 (talk) 15:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

As seen in a number of the requests above this is not likely to change. You would need to start an WP:RFC at this point to change consensus. Additionally I prefer this site when checking on bias and reliability. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done As ScottishFinnishRadish says, and explained multiple times above, the consensus is that Allsides is not a reliable source. Mojoworker (talk) 22:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

History and relation to Falun Gong section

I've just merged these two sections together, as there's no discussing one without the other. The editorial stance should probably also be a part of this section: In short, The Epoch Times is Falun Gong's primary outlet, as a tremendous amount of sources have made perfectly clear at this point. However, these sections currently read as a collecton of disparate quotes, which is probably very difficult for readers to follow. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:DATED and edit-warring

(Moving over a question to User:Bloodofox that I had left on their user talk, after they aggressively insisted that I should ask it here instead. Regarding the second sentence, see also the discussion above.)

Regarding your edits [35][36]: It appears that you have a history of combative editing in this topic area (and have been sanctioned for it less than two weeks ago). But on the off-chance that you were not merely blanket revert-warring but had an actual rationale for removing the {{When|date=March 2021}} tags, I would be curious to know it. The tagged statements clearly violate the linked guideline ("recently" etc).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:39, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

So, I ask you to keep it one place and so you decide to open yet another thread. This is, what, the third time you've pinged me somewehere about this now? And yet again you've misrepresented the incorrect and temporary placement of my name on a 0RR list, which was removed almost as soon as I found out about it.

Like, what? This is getting to the point of WP:HARASSMENT. If a tag was incorrectly removed, restore it. It happens. That would have taken you much less time than the effort you've spent hounding me in multiple threads—two on this page alone. This sort of WP:POINTy behavior combined with your penchant to edit-war is disruptive and obnoxious, not only for me, but I am sure also for anyone having to witness it. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:53, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

It's easier to fix the problem introduced by the word "recently" than it is to fight about it. There should not be a template saying "when?" because it makes us lazy. Binksternet (talk) 19:53, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree (and so does the community, considering the continued existence of this template since 2007), but that is not the point here anyway. I have now actually spent the extra time to fix the tagged parts myself (and it was a nontrivial amount of time, involving going through this rather convoluted section, inspecting the three cited Snopes articles which contain a lot of detail, and figuring out which information came from which, and then deciding about how to best reword those sentences to incorporate their time context).

But even if I had done that earlier, Bloodofox would very likely still have reverted the change, considering their apparent admission above that this was just collateral damage of their edit-warring about an entirely different part of the article.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:40, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Bloodofox: "This is, what, the third time you've pinged me somewehere" - that complaint is a bit rich, considering that it was yourself who had deleted this in the first location and asked me to bring it to this talk page instead [37]. As to why I opened new section on this page instead of piling on the already lengthy thread about the awards above, it's simply because it concerned changes to an entirely separate section of the article. You appear to have a very peculiar understanding of WP:HARASSMENT and WP:POINT. As the notice on the top of this talk page reminds us, this is a controversial topic where if one gets reverted, it is best practice to first figure out why, on the chance that the reverter may have had a good reason that oneself has overlooked. This is why I asked you about your change instead of simply reverting it back myself. Thanks for acknowledging that you had no such reason; I have now spent the extra time to fix the WP:DATED issue myself.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:40, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Uh, whatever it is you're trying to communicate and whatever your reason for all that text (?), I've now asked you several times to just keep these lengthy rants in one place instead of pinging me across Wikipedia. Please just go ahead and bury it. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

A series of issues: #1

This article appears to be a WP:CRITS. I have identified a series of problems and will raise them here in the coming days. The POV tag should be placed on this article as a result.

1. Recently, the Awards section was deleted due to the concern that they were awarded to individual Epoch Times journalists, rather than Epoch Times as a whole. However, the norm for journalism awards is that when a journalist from a particular publication wins an award, it equates to the publication getting that award.

For example, in the Washington Post article, it says the publication won 69 pulitzer prizes. But Pulitzer prizes are awarded to individual journalists, as can be seen [here]. So, we should not strip publications of their awards just because they were obtained by their journalists. Thomas Meng (talk) 13:12, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the awards should be restored, for consistency with articles on other publications. Whisperjanes, as the editor who removed the section, do you have any thoughts on this? — Newslinger talk 19:04, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Newslinger. While these are not quite Pulitzers and do not need to be highlighted in the lede, they should be mentioned in the article body, as is standard practice in articles about newspapers. One should also be aware that both references explicitly mention the Epoch Times, so there is no WP:SYNTH issue here.

We should mention the year for each award, which is always relevant information but especially in this case as both awards predate the paper's Trump turn.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:20, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

HaeB, good point, the year should not be omitted. Thomas Meng (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

The subject of this article is by no means just another media entity. If these awards are reintroduced, it's imperative that their dates and context are supplied for readers. In fact, I think we need secondary sources discussing the awards in context given the article subject's shift to its current state. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:31, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Bloodofox, to what type of secondary sources do you refer? Since the section under discussion already has web pages of Sigma Delta Chi and the Front Page Award mentioning ET, do you mean the media reports discussing the context of ET's awards? Thomas Meng (talk) 23:02, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion, Thomas Meng (and for the ping, Newslinger). I didn't realize other news articles list individual journalist awards, so I have no issue with restoring the information on that front. I don't know exactly how I feel about a two-bullet list having it's own section, however, so it might do better as prose? Also, just a side comment - Awards sections are usually listed at the bottom of an article, so it should probably be moved further down. - Whisperjanes (talk) 05:01, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Whisperjanes, my pleasure. I'm actually not sure whether bullet point or prose is standard on Wikipedia. I've seen both, so we might need others' opinion on this. As for the order of placement, I think the awards section should precede the WP:CSECTIONs because of the chronological order. The CSECTIONS are mostly sourced from coverage by other media from 2019 onward, while the awards under discussion are from 2012 and 2013. The Washington Times article also has its awards section preceding its controversies. Thomas Meng (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I removed the neutrality template from this article. But I agree with Thomas Meng that significant awards can be a part of the article, if cited to a secondary source. It should be near the end of the article, as Whisperjanes says. Llll5032 (talk) 09:03, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Whisperjanes To be clear, part of the argument here is that the awards explicitly mention the newspaper besides the journalist. When that is not the case, additional considerations apply (cf. below). Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Can someone restore the awards section so that we can move on to the next issue? I'm unwilling to keep reverting as though I'm edit-warring. Also, it is undeniable that this article contains multiple WP:CSECTIONs, and its neutrality is disputed. Calton, would you add the POV tag back? Thomas Meng (talk) 02:56, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

You'll (or someone will) need to provide a secondary source mentioning it before we can add it. We can discuss multiple topics at once. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:26, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

We shouldn't reapply a POV tag, Thomas Meng, unless you can make a reasonable case that the article fails to reflect independent sources. The POV template's instructions say, "This template should only be applied to articles that are reasonably believed to lack a neutral point of view. The neutral point of view is determined by the prevalence of a perspective in high-quality, independent, reliable secondary sources, not by its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the public." Llll5032 (talk) 04:42, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why we would need to deviate from usual practice here and demand secondary sources for the two awards discussed above. The websites of these organizations (Society of Professional Journalists and Newswomen's Club of New York) are reliable sources for who the recipients of their awards were. Also, these statement by the awarding organizations are not unduly self-serving to themselves.

Having said that, Thomas Meng has just added a third award (from the Governor General of Canada) that appears noteworthy but with the connection to the Epoch Times only cited to an article by the Epoch Times itself - this is where I agree that we need a secondary source.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I've removed this section again: The Epoch Times is a particular case and is not comparable to most other media entities: This is deep fringe territory. We need reliable secondary sources, preferrably those that contextualize this with the Epoch Times's dramatic change. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:24, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I have no strong opinions on the first two awards. But the primary source for the Diamond Jubilee award says that 59,354 Diamond Jubilee awards were given, so a secondary source is required to prove its significance. Llll5032 (talk) 05:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I have reverted your blanket deletion (but left out the "Diamond Jubilee" award per the above discussion). You have provided no compelling reason why we should suspend general Wikipedia policies and practices here and instead treat the article as "a particular case". Sure, like in any article about a newspaper, it needs to cover noteworthy criticism and concerns (and there are a lot of these here). But we do that by consistently applying NPOV etc., not by selectively ignoring it. Or to put it differently: The views of Wikipedia editor Bloodofox about this article's subject do not override those that the Society of Professional Journalists and Newswomen's Club of New York have expressed.

If you want to add contextualization, by all means do so. You could start from the 2020 New York Times piece, which also mentioned other awards that we have not yet listed in this article: By 2014, The Epoch Times was edging closer to Mr. Li’s vision of a respectable news outlet. Subscriptions were growing, the paper’s reporting was winning journalism awards, and its finances were stabilizing. [...] But at a staff meeting in 2015 ...

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

First, respect my time by not posting the same thing here and on my talk page. I only needed this message here, not here and my talk page. That's inappropriate, as was your invocation of an incorrect 0RR restriction on my talk page that was repealed soon after I realized it existed.

Second, the Epoch Times is most certainly different than the other media entities mentioned on this talk page, such as The Washington Post, and today it is definitely operating in deep fringe territory. It is inarguably a very different entity than it was when those rewards were provided. To claim otherwise is simply false. None of this is at all in violation of NPOV, as we have numerous WP:RS-compliant sources saying exactly this. Framing this reality as 'something bloodofox says' is, again, inappropriate. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:19, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Ad 1): That is not true, my message on your talk page was about an entirely different issue with your edits. In fact I explicitly said there that I was keeping the discussion about the awards on this talk page. I'll open a separate thread below.

Also, looking at your block log, it seems a bit of a stretch to claim you were subject to an "incorrect" restriction. (The unblocking admin cited IAR and the assumption that you had not been given a prior warning, an assumption that turned out to be wrong. I am aware that an admin subsequently lifted your restriction on March 7, but while I am sure that they had good reasons, I hope that this is not received as a license for combative editing in this article. - In general, I prefer to keep discussion of such behavioral issues out of article talk pages, but since you brought it here yourself and aggressively reverted my comment on your user talk page, it seems I need to address this here instead.)

Ad 2): That's a misrepresentation too - nobody said that WaPo and ET are the same. What I said is that we cover such differences on Wikipedia by consistently applying practices and policies such as NPOV, not by selectively suspending them.

"It is inarguably a very different entity than it was when those rewards [sic] were provided. To claim otherwise is simply false." Another strawman - nobody claimed that there was no change. In fact I had been the first person in this thread to call out that "both awards predate the paper's Trump turn" and that this makes it important to state (as in other newspaper articles) the year when the award was given, an oversight in Thomas Meng's addition that I fixed myself here. Similarly, this is not a debate about the already ample coverage of the Epoch Times' more recent promotion of conspiracy theories and other journalistic failings. Rather, this is about your efforts to keep undisputed facts out of the article.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:35, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

1. In fact, the Washington Post was, indeed, recommended as a comparable case on this very talk page, at the top of this thread. Please pay closer attention. And your repeated harping on—how many times have you brought this up in how many threads?—about an instance where I was mistakenly added to a bizarre 0RR list and then quickly removed once I discovered it isn't doing you any favors. Review Wikipedia:Harassment#Hounding and rethink your approach.

2. Once again, if a tag was probably removed by mistake, just readd it. In most cases, nobody will fault you—it happens. You've been pinging me about this on multiple threads now—two on this talk page alone and for some reason also my talk page. Again, review Wikipedia:Harassment. Finally, comments from you like "your efforts to keep indisputed facts out of the article" are weird to see given my own background of having provided a large amount of sources on this and related articles. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:08, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Awards should be included only if supported by secondary sources per WP:DUE, and I would apply this standard to any news outlet. Since the The Washington Post is being used as a comparison, I would note that awards mentioned in that article are supported by secondary sources.

I've removed the Sigma Delta Chi and Front Page awards since these are supported only by primary sources (Epoch Times and the organizations that bestowed the awards). They meet WP:V but fail WP:DUE. I could not find any reliable secondary sources to support these. If they don't consider these important enough to cover, why should we? –dlthewave ☎ 15:43, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Dlthewave, it appears to fail WP:DUE to me as well. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:13, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 March 2021

"Correction: This story was corrected to address an error in fact-checking. An earlier version of the story incorrectly described the Falun Gong spiritual group as owning The Epoch Times."

LOL Maybe several corrections are in order, your sources are full of dead links and politically biased fiction or factual inaccuracies! 73.11.129.126 (talk) 09:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

No edit requested, closing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:06, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 March 2021 (2)

How in gods name is Epoch Times a far right publication ? 2603:7000:A907:DEF0:B012:6B45:78CE:CABC (talk) 22:13, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. You should direct your question to ET itself. Gentleman wiki (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. Please see the cited sources at Special:Permalink/1013427573 § cite note-12, which include high-quality academic sources describing The Epoch Times as far-right. Wikipedia is not an outlet for promotion, so what The Epoch Times (RSP entry) claims about itself is superseded by independent reliable sources. — Newslinger talk 00:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 29 March 2021

This article is biased. CNN, NY Times, and other mainstream outlets are far left, yet they aren't labeled such in their respective articles. The editors of Wikipedia, much like Snopes, are showing their true colors. The term 'far right' has been made slanderous by mainstream media. Left leaning sensationalists label anything they find repulsive as 'far right'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:283:0:3740:8581:5045:f180:1397 (talk) 23:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

March 2021

If Epoch Times is called 'far-right' shouldn't Wikipedia be called 'far-left totalitarian'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.134.107.58 (talk) 03:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

No, that argument is a false dilemma and it's also irrelevant to this article. — Newslinger talk 03:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Sir, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia used by millions of people worldwide. It is not a discussion forum for extremist ideas. Please use another website to discuss your concerns with like minded people. Please do not vandalize this site.

Gentleman wiki (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Who's editing this article?

The "Reception" section reads like it was written by the government of China. There is no mention at all of the quality of the performance. Every statement is written in the context of Shen Yun as propaganda. I attended one performance, and it has artistic merit worth reviewing. Upon leaving the performance, I was approached by an ethnic Chinese reporter and cameraman. They were visibly disappointed when I said I enjoyed the performance, and immediately left to sample someone else's opinion. They were clearly seeking a negative review. The "Reception" section mirrors this one-sided approach. Digger1234 (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC) Digger1234 09:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Just today, it appears someone without an account (editing from an IP address) changed the phrasing of the first paragraph so that instead of referring to Qanon and the anti-vaccination movement as "conspiracy theories," the article now reads "The group's news sites and YouTube channels are known for telling truthes such as QAnon and anti-vaccination stories." My guess is that someone involved with the newspaper or Falun Gong made that edit, but regardless, it's flagrantly biased, and flagrantly biased towards some belief systems that are absolutely gonzo. I'm going to reverse the edit, but I doubt it's the only example of pro-ET bias in the article, or the last one we'll see. Flyest nihilist (talk) 17:47, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, they are creating and concealing several dozen Facebook pages. I would be very, very surprised if Wikipedia isn't being used as a covert battleground for not only these guys but several other groups that typically can be found under rocks. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Citing NBC word for word as fact is not very appropriate. Should be more along the lines of "...Accused by NBC News of..." Creepercast888 (talk) 11:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia considers NBC reliable. Binksternet (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I can't find that NBC is a reliable source on Wiki Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. Besides that, reliable doesn't mean "no error". As long as a source has biased or inaccurate points, we should avoid being influenced by that. LoftusCH (talk) 01:13, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

RSP is not exhaustive. NBC News has a positive reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. It is not a flawless reputation, but it is enough that the outlet is considered generally reliable. We would need a specific, policy-based reason to claim this has inaccurate points. Saying a source is biased is too broad to be helpful. Calling a source biased doesn't make it biased, and it's not always clear if being biased matters. Grayfell (talk) 00:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

NBCNews does not have a positive reputation and are hardly If at all, they can not be used as fact SurgeonRT (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Using New York Times articles as sources is beyond me. Wikipedia should be about proven neutral sources and trusted content. How Epoch times is considered far right, where the sources are from left wing outlets should be enough to remove such information SurgeonRT (talk) 20:32, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Your opinion shows you to have a WP:FRINGE stance. NBC News and The New York Times are about as mainstream center as you can get. You just gave yourself two black eyes with those two remarks. Binksternet (talk) 20:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

We've all recently seen just how trusted these mainstream sources are. Anyone with a critical thinking capability won't blindly defend news media outlets just because they are mainstream. Recent misinformation retraction from Washington Post is case in point. And New York Times has been notorious for their political agenda motivated writing. We need to take all of these with a grain of salt. Berehinia (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There has been no retraction by the Washington Post regarding their story on Trump's call with a Georgia investigator. The call did happen and Trump did pressure the investigator as initially reported. Rather they have issued a correction regarding two quotes but otherwise stand by their story. They specifically write: "We are not retracting our January story because it conveyed the substance of Trump’s attempt to influence the work of Georgia’s elections investigators." Gentleman wiki (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Hate Fueled Bias Aimed at Epoch Times

Wikipedia begs and begs me to donate each year, and i always have. No more. There are so many errors in the ET wiki it would take weeks to make the edits. You people should be ashamed, seriously! 96.8.253.100 (talk) 05:13, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — Newslinger talk 05:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 April 2021

Epoch Times in this Wiki, for some reason, is labeled as "far-right". It seems like Epoch Times is purposely labeled as "far-right" simply because they are not anti-Trump. This is intellectually dishonest and does not belong in Wikipedia. 172.90.47.176 (talk) 23:34, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

 Note: This is well sourced in the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not an opinion forum. Epoch Times is not "labeled" far-right, it is far-right. The fact that you are not able to see it does not change reality. Gentleman wiki (talk) 03:33, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

NBC investigative piece on epoch times

This could have useful information for this page. Takes a deep dive into how their Falun Gong philosophy has motivated the paper to take a more explicitly pro-Trump editorial stance recently. Could help expand our descriptions of their English language news coverage. GeauxDevils (talk) 17:26, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

NBC should be taken with a grain of salt as with all other mainstream medias. Creepercast888 (talk) 11:25, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

As per NBC News Fails CRC Fact Check: The Epoch Times Is No Pro-Trump Dark Money Operation, NBC's accusations against Epochtimes are false. Scarlett 04:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

You mean the Capital Research Center, the libertarian think tank? The one that once claimed ACORN paid its volunteers in crack cocaine? That one? That's a big fat "no", then. --Calton | Talk 05:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

The article largely relied on the NBC’s report on The Epoch Times (ET), but NBC is not an RS on the subject of ET because of WP:COI and WP:REPUTABLE “Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. “

1 Being obsessed with the conspiracy theory that Trump works for Russia, in recent years NBC was caught for reporting fake news many times in this regard. Here are 2 examples: A, B

The Epoch Times (ET) has been reporting Spygate events where the pro-Hillary US Intelligence Community (IC) set up traps to spy and to destroy their enemy Trump and his supporters. Recently many other media echoed ET’s Spygate report.Here is one recent Yahoo news

NBC and ET have been reporting two competing theories and therefore being competitors to each other, so it is clear that NBC is not a third party on the subject of ET. To cite NBC for introducing ET is against WP:COI and WP:REPUTABLE.

2 NBC Universe has a joint venture in Beijing with CCP

CCP riots in Hong Kong tried to burn down ET’s printing house. NBC’s economic ties with CCP made its report on ET appear not following WP:COI.Scarlett 02:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Scarlett if you are so sure about this, take it to WP:RSN. But I don't think you'll like the response. But please, either drop this or go to RSN. Doug Weller talk 10:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: - it was taken to RSN, and I have closed the discussion [38]. The consensus is that the NBC News is a generally reliable source for the Epoch Times article, while some editors feel that the CRC is unreliable. starship.paint (talk) 02:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

This line from the introduction: "The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccination propaganda.[7][15][16]" Seems to be based on a paragraph in the NBC source that claims that ET is a "powerful conduit [..] for QAnon [..] to reach the mainstream.". It then links to an article published by ET here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-q-phenomenon_2581642.html I read the article, but didn't get a sense that it was promoting the QAnon theory. My sense from the article was that it was just explaining what it was, and interviewed someone associated with the theory. With that I think the bit about ET promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory should be removed, because it doesn't appear to be true. 98.14.254.37 (talk) 00:33, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Down in the article body you will find the proper link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-qanon-impending-judgment-day-behind-facebook-fueled-rise-epoch-n1044121

The NBC article is a very reliable source, and it will remain. Binksternet (talk) 01:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@98.14.254.37: also see the "Edge of Wonder" descriptions at the end of the NBC article.[39] Llll5032 (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The second Epoch Times article referenced further down in the NBC piece is this one: https://www.theepochtimes.com/media-attacks-do-little-to-sway-q-supporters_2617778.html which largely matches the neutral tone of the first article. It seems that the line in question in the Wikipedia article is mostly referring to the "Edge of Wonder" show, which is produced by New Tang Dynasty, a subsidiary of Epoch Media Group. I wonder if it would be relevant to mention on Wikipedia's ABC News article that Walt Disney Media's television networks push alien conspiracy theories (History Network). 98.14.254.37 (talk) 01:58, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@98.14.254.37: Also "The Epoch Times has promoted "Edge of Wonder" content in dozens of Facebook posts" and the show's two hosts worked for the Epoch Times "as the company’s creative director and chief photo editor". Llll5032 (talk) 02:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

These are weak and indirect links, which cannot claim The Epoch Times promotes QAnon. The paragraphs in the document explain that and are fine. But this does not merit this line in the header. I removed it. I do not believe we should step too deep into the publication wars between NYTimes, NBC and Epoch.Itaj Sherman (talk) 01:06, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

You are setting up a false balance. There is no war between the huge NBC and NYT mainstream news centers and fringe-right Epoch. Binksternet (talk) 01:30, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is lost. NYT used to be mainstream, now it is just far left propaganda. I've seen the NYT hit pieces against Epoch. They imply they are involved with QAnon without actually saying it, because they would be sued for libel. Epoch is conservative and largly supports Trump. They have no connection to Qanon apart from mentioning its existance. And mentioning a dozen times out of a million publications doesn't merit being put in the header of the doc. This is a political edit war. Have fun supporting CCP or w/e it is you support. And I will make sure Wikipedia is known to be biased. Itaj Sherman (talk) 10:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I totally agree with Itaj. Due to influence from Chinese Communism Party government around the world, many mainstream media have financial ties with CCP. https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/ These media will probably be biased when reporting topic that CCP government does not like. Therefore, we should be careful when using sources from "mainstream" and "reliable" media.LoftusCH (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

You're seriously suggesting that NBC are CCP shills or something? Or is it just any source you disagree with that are CCP shills? That's the sort of conspiracy theorist bullshit a Falun Gong shill who's would say, not someone actually interested in neutrally summarizing reliable sources (which, btw, would not include a site that considers The Daily Wire to be equivalent to CBS News, or The Daily Caller equivalent to the NYT). Ian.thomson (talk) 22:13, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@TorLiu: LoftusCH, please look at Starship.paint's link above. [40] Llll5032 (talk) 22:31, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Ian, don't be so naive. It's more subtle than that. The democratic establishment & administration is patroned by big business, including big tech. Nearly all big business these days benefits immensely from a positive working relationship with China. Since the media establishment needs inside government sources to generate journalistic leads (as actual reporting skills have gone the way of the dodo -- replaced by "activism" and ideology), towing the government PR line and having that symbiotic relationship with power is now the status quo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:1970:505D:3E00:F187:6F35:F29B:F138 (talk) 12:10, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Problem #2: Misleadingly representing MSNBC, NBC's story about ET as facts

The lead currently says: "The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation", which is referenced to NBC.

This suggests that Epoch Times is a purveyor of these consipricy theories, while completely igoring Epoch Times's article that says: In a further attempt to discredit The Epoch Times, Maddow tried to mix Epoch Times’ reporting with content from an independent digital entertainment show called “Edge of Wonder,” which explicitly focuses on the most audacious conspiracy theories out there.

In a statement sent to NBC on June 20, The Epoch Times wrote that: “While we are aware of the entertainment show ‘Edge of Wonder,’ which was founded by former Epoch Times staff, The Epoch Times is in no way connected with it.”

This quote shows that even ET themselves do not believe anti-vax and QAnon as accepted theories, not to mention that ET did not publish any of such. So, I'd recommend either removing this misleading sentence from the lead, or adding ET's statement to give a full picture of the incident. Best, Thomas Meng (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Of course they would say that. We go by what reliable sources say, not what the subject says about themselves, especially when the subject is so unreliable that it's been deprecated as a source. Do any reliable sources dispute the conspiracy theory/misinformation labels? –dlthewave ☎ 19:29, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

A 2019 RfC found consensus that The Epoch Times (RSP entry) should be deprecated as an unreliable source. We would need reliable sources to support the proposed changes. — Newslinger talk 22:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

The opinion of Epoch Times cannot be used here. Deprecated source, also primary source for this issue. If an unconnected third party relays this opinion it can be cited. Also, all of the Falun Gong–founded media streams are connected, part of the larger effort. Edge of Wonder is certainly connected Epoch Times through its founder Ben Chasteen who was photo editor for seven years at Epoch Times right before starting Edge of Wonder. Binksternet (talk) 23:27, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreeing with responses above: Reliable sources (see WP:RSP) would need to dispute the assessments of NBC News and others for us to remove this statement. Do any? Llll5032 (talk) 03:46, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Dlthewave, Newslinger, Binksternet, Llll5032: Thanks for your replies. Though deprecated by consensus, The RSP entry for ET does say that its WP deprecationdoes not mean that The Epoch Times can no longer be used, just that it can never again be used as a reference for facts. In this case, if we include ET’s response, it would be stated as an opinionated rebuttal to NBC’s claim with in-text attribution, conforming with RSP.

Regardless though, another ET rebuttal is published on the WSJ, which is an RS we can use.

Binksternet’s assertion about the relationship between them seems rather like flawed logic: Just because the entertainment show Egde of Wonders is founded by an ET former photo editor, doesn’t mean that they are in any way editorially related, since a company shouldn’t be taking responsibility over what its former employee does. Thomas Meng (talk) 03:43, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

That WSJ article is not useful for anything on Wikipedia. It is an opinion piece written by Stephen Gregory, the publisher of the U.S. edition of The Epoch Times. His opinion about the issue is just as useless on WSJ as it is on Epoch Times. Does not meet WP:SECONDARY. Binksternet (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Thomas Meng, I think arguments from the 2019 opinion would be WP:DUE only if quoted by a WP:SECONDARY source. WP:RSP advises to "Use WP:RSOPINION for opinion pieces" in the WSJ, and WP:RSOPINION says: "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact." WP:MANDY may apply because of the deprecation. This Wikipedia article has three statements by Gregory via WP:SECONDARY sources, which are more WP:DUE. Llll5032 (talk) 05:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 May 2021

If the Epoch Times is considered a far-right spreading misinformation, what about your description of the NY Times: Extreme left marxist-leninist-Maoist propaganda organ. Wikipedia has become the official organ of the "cancel culture". 173.238.124.169 (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: As already mentioned, this statement is supported by reliable sources. Regardless, your requested edit isn't to this article from what I can tell. For more information, please read through the many times similar questions have been asked on this talk page. Thanks, Pupsterlove02 talk • contribs 14:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Some of these sources are incorrectly translated. "Rechtspopulismus" is Right-wing populism not far-right, which is an American term and inappropriate for an international newspaper. More honest description would be "Is an international newspaper that has been described as right wing populist and far right". WhiskeyFoxtrot7 (talk) 02:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 May 2021

Change "Epoch times is a far right" to "Epoch times is a conservative leaning" 2600:100A:B102:1826:0:49:5614:E301 (talk) 15:36, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. See also the (many) posts above. TGHL ↗ 16:03, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Just my 2 cents: it is not "either or", it is both true. It has been described as right leaning, right wing populist, and far right. It depends on who you ask and it can not be lumped into one umbrella term. WhiskeyFoxtrot7 (talk) 00:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Youtube

Right now, all we have about Youtube demonetizing ET is the ET statement, a primary source. I looked for other sources, but most online references to this action are at sites that I have never heard of and do not have Wikipedia sites. I don't know, without spending a lot of time or asking in the Tearoom and waiting for a link, how to find out if they are considered good sources for Wikipedia. Two notable sources are Newsmax, which is probably not acceptable, and Breitbart, which is questionable. Can any-one else find and an acceptable additional reference? Kdammers (talk) 03:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The Perennial sources list is a good place to find sources that have been discussed before; Newsmax and Breitbart are marked red which means that their use is generally prohibited. I Googled this as well and couldn't find any reliable-source coverage. If nobody reliable has covered this, it fails our due weight requirement and should be removed. –dlthewave ☎ 04:07, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to the guidelines. I noticed there that even low-level sources can be used in discussions about themselves. I have finally found an additional source about the demonetization, the Minot Daily News, which states in an opinion piece by Laura Hollis (apparently a nationally syndicated columnist) that The Epoch Times says that it was demonetized by Youtube. A Google-news search also got a hit on "Youtube Blocks Epoch Times From Making Money Off Video Content. WBAP News/Talk Jan 29," but I am blocked from viewing it. The Wikipedia article on WBAP lists programs of nationally syndicated right-wing commentators among its content. On the other hand, I also found this: "YouTube is still monetizing misinformation from The Epoch Times and NTD, despite claims to the contrary WRITTEN BY JUSTIN HOROWITZ PUBLISHED 02/12/21 9:20 AM EST" on Media Matters. Wikipedia characterizes Media Matters as left-wing. The short article says that some ET videos (ones, apparently, with other names) still have [as of the publication date] money-generating ads before pushing for complete demonetization. It includes screen shots to support this claim/statement. Kdammers (talk) 06:39, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The Daily Dot says a Youtube spokesperson said that Epoch Times was demonetized. Kdammers (talk) 15:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure? From the Daily Dot article it looks like just Edge of Wonder was demonetized. Llll5032 (talk) 16:25, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

You are right. Apparently my expectation made my eyes misread the text. Thanks for checking. Kdammers (talk) 15:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Far-right descriptor

Bhoke2081, please stop removing the "far-right" descriptor without providing reliable sources of similar quality and quantity showing that The Epoch Times is not far-right. There are currently four cited reliable sources showing that The Epoch Times is far-right, including Kaiser's 2019 analysis of online media published in Routledge. If needed, there are even more reliable sources available that I have not yet added. — Newslinger talk 06:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

The source is reliable enough Bhoke2081 (talk) 06:41, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Neither of the sources you have mentioned so far – Ad Fontes Media (RSP entry) and AllSides (discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard in 2017, 2019, and 2020) – is able to match the quality of even the Routledge source on its own. — Newslinger talk 06:46, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Bhoke2081, WP:DUE says for assessments like this we need to balance "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" (see WP:RS and WP:RSP for what a reliable source is) Llll5032 (talk) 06:52, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

There are (at least somewhat) credible sources from both sides of the argument, therefore it is not a fact to say either person is correct. Why don't we remove the descriptor from the first paragraph and put all the sources in the media bias section? Faxmachinechecker (talk) 02:04, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has specific guidelines for determining if sources are reliable or not. We do not assume that there are only two sides, and we do not assume that both sides are equal. Reliable sources describe Epoch as far-right. Wikipedia articles generally should not confine important information to criticism sections. Grayfell (talk) 04:56, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/epoch-times-media-bias This article seems to indicate that most people do not consider The Epoch Times to be far-right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.98.64.80 (talk) 12:21, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

It's not a reliable source and the site doesn't give them that option in any case. Doug Weller talk 16:06, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure in what way All Sides is not a "reliable source". They are a bipartisan organization dedicated to "exposing people to information and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum so they can better understand the world — and each other." They provide the political leanings of their founders and editorial staff. They provide, in detail, their methodology for evaluating media sources. They use multiple methods for evaluating bias including blind bias surveys of people from across the political spectrum, editorial reviews, third party analysis, independent review, and community feedback. They have received press coverage from many media outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, NPR, BBC, CBS, Huffpost, Time, and Newsweek.

All Sides had rated The Epoch Times as "Right" (i.e. far-right). However, in their latest blind bias survey, the majority of 2,000 respondents, distributed evenly across the political spectrum, rated The Epoch Times as "Center". All Sides conducted a new editorial review and changed the rating of The Epoch Times to "Leans Right". They explain their methodology and reasoning.

I do not know of any other source for media bias ratings that is more thorough, bipartisan, balanced, and transparent. So I am interested in what makes All Sides an unreliable source. — Auctoris (talk) 18:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Allsides was capitalized in 2011, and went live online in late 2012/early 2013. Their founder/CEO John Gable was previously with Microsoft, AOL and Netscape. Their bias rating algorithm includes crowd-sourced elements, which could allow gaming of the system. They are not at all transparent with regard to payments received from targeted media outlets to change the rating results. I would expect Epoch Times to have paid money for the privilege of getting a better score. Binksternet (talk) 19:17, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Do you have evidence that their approach (blind bias surveys of people from across the political spectrum, editorial reviews, third party analysis, independent review, and community feedback) has been gamed? The system was created to minimize gaming.

There is no perfect system for rating media bias. It is not a hard science. There will always be the *possibility* for error or manipulation in any rating system. For example, even voting is not perfect. There *could* be fraud, but we do not assume there is fraud simply because it is possible. We look for evidence. If there is no evidence, then even though the system is not perfect and fraud is *possible*, we accept it as reliable.

Even in science, we work to maximize the internal and external validity and reliability of our methodology, but it will never be perfect.

Do you have evidence that All Sides have received payments to change media bias ratings? Are you suggesting that they promote a particular political bias and/or operate as a fraudulent for-profit business? If so, I would appreciate seeing the evidence so I can evaluate it. — Auctoris (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Another problem with Allsides is that they re-assessed Epoch Times in August 2020, the same month that Facebook banned Epoch Times for posting conspiracy theories, and the same month NBC News and Business Insider were revealing the Q-Anon hoax stories coming from Epoch Times. Allsides just says "August 2020" for chronology, so we don't know whether they factored in the breaking news. It's hardly likely they did so, or they would have retained the far-right assessment. Nobody who "leans right" would be promoting conspiracy theories. Binksternet (talk) 21:02, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

That is a fair critique that should be followed up. As you say, "we don't know whether they factored in breaking news". Perhaps they understand the timing issue and that is why they made the decision to only move it to Lean Right rather than changing it to Center as the blind-bias survey respondents suggested. However, this critique does not make All Sides—as an organization—an unreliable source. We need a critique demonstrating how there system is of inferior reliability to other systems for rating media bias.

BTW, I do not read The Epoch Times so I have no personal opinion on its bias rating. And I do not always agree with All Sides' ratings. — Auctoris (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Auctoris:, Binksternet is definitely twisting the dates around and spreading untruthful information here.

The Epoch Times (ET) received attacks from the NBC, followed by Business Insider in August 2019 (not 2020 !), saying that their sister media, NTD TV, has an entertainment Youtube channel, “Edge of Wonders”, that "promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory". This is already quite a far stretch in an attempt to discredit ET, not to mention that both the ET and Edge of Wonder had already made it clear that they have no connections with each other [41].

In addition, ET has also made it clear here that it has never “promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory”. So, just a few things to clarify here. Best, Thomas Meng (talk) 03:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

"Received attacks" – very funny. Epoch Times was investigated by good faith reporters from NBC News who reported what they found. It was not an "attack"; it was regular mainstream news. The whole Falun Gong media net is connected to the Edge of Wonders channel on YouTube, the channel spreading Q-Anon hoax nonsense, despite any disavowal by one or another of the media arms. Daily Dot looked into it further and confirmed. Binksternet (talk) 06:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Allsides is assessed here [42] on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, as not a reliable source for citations. Llll5032 (talk) 13:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger The Epoch Times is not a "far-right" newspaper. Wikipedia should not allow such biased language. It is indeed possible to describe a publication in a factual, professional, and encyclopedic way, which means avoiding sweeping categorizations. The article should present enough information to lead the reader to this conclusion without stating it, if it is indeed true. The Epoch Times' own motto is "Truth and Tradition". That is a noteworthy fact, which also suggests its ideological leanings. Why is that not in the first paragraph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.27.250 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia is based on WP:SECONDARY sources. We summarize for the reader what has been published about a topic. It's absolutely true that some very major sources have investigated The Epoch Times and determined that they are part of the Falun Gong media net and that all of these media outlets have been pushing far-right conspiracy theories. They hitched their wagon to the Trump train, turning their back on science and truth. Binksternet (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe The Epoch Times news is right, very right! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.51.165.216 (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The person who wrote that The Epoch Times is a Far-Right" (Nazi) news organization has been BLOCKED by Wikipedia.....but the unfactual information still stands in the Wiki... — Preceding unsigned comment added by HelloTokyo1 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Far-right politics includes much more than Nazism. Edits are not reversed just because an editor is blocked, and the editor who originally added the descriptor in Special:Diff/986993296 is not currently blocked. — Newslinger talk 22:22, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

I disagree that the Epoch Times' "far-right" label is accurate, definitive and conclusive, and I don't think it belongs in the first sentence of the article. The AllSides study of bias in The Epoch Times concluded that although it did have quite a strong anti-CCP flavour, the publication was close to center, with a slight lean to the right (see chart). I know that the AllSides study is seen by a few editors here as unreliable, however I have not seen any other blind studies of the same depth. Readers are not easily able to access the Rutledge book, nor am I, so it's difficult to comment on (although a Google Book search for the word "Epoch" inside the book produced zero results!). Regarding the several other sources listed in the article for the "far right" label, some are quite dubious:

• The ChinaFile article is published under a "Reporting & Opinion" heading. Is it reporting, or opinion?
• New York Times article - unable to access
• New Republic - unlike many of the others below, this article demonstrates some decent investigative research, however it is mostly about the German office of the Epoch Times, and states "The U.S. version of the newspaper is a far tamer version than its German cousin". If this is true, perhaps it should be mentioned.
• Foreign Policy article - this article is not about The Epoch Times at all. It has a single passing comment from the author that says "Many of the most potent claims have roots with anti-CCP and far-right actors, including the Falun Gong-backed Epoch Times." This is backed up with no source, research, or anything.
• The Washington Post article - is also not specifically about The Epoch Times, and only mentions them in passing, once--"two far-right outfits, the Gateway Pundit and Epoch Times"--while providing little original research to back-up this claim, but instead pointing to the NBC News article. Perhaps *that* should be the source.
• The Diplomat - similar to the above, the article is not about the Epoch Times, but has a single, unreferenced, passing comment
• The Verge - as above, the article is not about the Epoch Times, but has a single, unreferenced, passing comment
• Fortune - unable to access
• The Daily Beast - unable to access
• Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen (in German) - unable to access in English. Not sure if the content refers to the German arm of the paper, or it globally.

So while it does seem common amongst these somewhat-left-leaning newspapers to call The Epoch Times "far right", I don't see clear rationale outlined in the provided sources (well, the ones I could access), at least nothing with the data and research as contained in the AllSides article. The Epoch Times Editorial Board themselves published a piece stating that "the publication would continue its tradition of not endorsing any political candidate, and that it stands strongly against communism". Does this anti-communism stance deserve a far-right label? Wikipedia defines far-right politics as "being anti-communist, authoritarian, ultranationalist, and having nativist ideologies and tendencies". I would say they are quite evidently anti-communist, but I see no clear evidence on them being authoritarian, ultranationalist, or nativist. Perhaps it is merely that US Republicans have typically taken a stronger stance against communism and the CCP in the last few years, and so the paper has given coverage to those that do? Could we consider changing "far-right" to "anti-communist"? Otherwise, can it be backed up with accessible, researched sources outside left-leaning newspapers? -- SimonEast (talk) 03:45, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Given SimonEast's comments and the fact that ET apparently is different in its US version compared to, at least, the German version, and because (undiscussed to this point as far as I can see) US ET has both opinion and fact pieces (occasionally mushily joining them, though), in which the fact pieces quote their sources, why can't we drop the "far-" from the description. I haven't seen any Qanon theories in the ET. Yes, the topics it brings up are ones right-wing groups focus on (e.g., problems with the US-Mexican border under Biden, blocking of certain parties on some social media outlets, Sanger's attacks of Wikipedia, Dershowitz's views on the Trump org.'s CFO, Pompeo's views on things, a congressman's claim that military members will quit if ordered to get vaccinated, Pa. governor vetoing election "integrity" bill, a proposed bullet tax and labeling bill in Pa with quotations from proposers and an opponent), but they are sourced and seem to be factual and not always tilted toward a conservative view.Kdammers (talk) 12:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the far-right claim is not backed up by substantial sources. Articles from another country, The New York Times, and The Washington Post? Really? After seeing how the NYT and The Washington Post handled the last six years we're really going to pretend those are reliable places to get any information? The only way you're getting solid evidence to back up where they lie on the biased spectrum is by showing the specific biased writing in dozens and dozens of their articles (e.g. click-bait titles, opinions in non-opinion articles). Cherry-picked articles that talk about the affirmative is poor quality.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 July 2021

Add media bias rating from respected source. This article calls the publication far-right when Allsides.com rates it lean right to center. I believe your far-right rating is outdated.

Suggested add to section on bias rating, and I would also suggest reconsidering the intro.

Suggested add:

Allsides.com, which rates media outlets for bias, rates The Epoch Times as lean right to center.

According to Allsides, "The Epoch Times bias rating is Lean Right, though perhaps close to Center. Much of The Epoch Times’ reporting is balanced; a slight right-wing bias is mostly displayed via story choice."

The results of Allsides' 2020 survey: "On average, people from across the political spectrum rated the bias of The Epoch Times as between Center and Lean Right in our Aug. 2020 Blind Bias Survey, though closer to Center. Pluralities across all groups of survey respondents — conservatives, centrists and liberals alike — rated The Epoch Times as Center. On average, people who self-reported a Center or Lean Right bias rated The Epoch Times as Center, while people who rated their own bias as Lean Left, Left, or Right on average found it to be just between Lean Right and Center. This discrepancy of rating from the survey results (Center-Lean Right) and the AllSides Media Bias Rating of The Epoch Times at the time (Right) prompted the team to conduct a full Editorial Review, which ultimately resulted in us moving The Epoch Times from a Right to a Lean Right bias rating in Aug. 2020." Dwittekind (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:06, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

"Far-right" is supported by eleven sources. soibangla (talk) 17:11, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 July 2021

Slander is not appropriate! 209.206.90.82 (talk) 03:05, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.

Where is there slander? ––FORMALDUDE^(talk) 03:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Finances needs a major rewrite

1. Epoch Times own three for-profit organizations. 2. To understand the finances one must consolidate Epoch Times Association with Universal Communications Network (New Tang Dynasty - NTD). 3. Epoch Times Association has filed what I would consider a FRAUDULENT tax return (form 990). It fails to report 14 (fourteen) affiliated non-profit organizations plus (arguably) Sound of Hope Radio Network. 4. It MIGHT be appropriate to at least mention the finances of Shen Yun. At the end of 2019 it had net assets of $144 million. That buys all the BS one could want. Shen Yun also has a church and a college. Moreover, Shen Yun is physically located at Universal Communications Network's office space. -- Unrelated, Epoch TV as "The Nation Speaks" is spreading misinformation about gender-diverse children. David Cary Hart (talk) 17:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

David Cary Hart, information of this kind needs to be stated first by a published secondary reliable source before it can be included in this article, per WP:PSTS: "All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." Llll5032 (talk) 18:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The pronunciation is /ˈɛp.ək/, acording to "Live Q&A: Democrats Block Bill to Declassify Virus Origin; Larry Elder Wins CA Lawsuit for Election" (at 36m50s), theepochtimes.com, Crossroads, 22 July 2021. Does anyone oppose using this as a source for the pronunciation? --Bensin (talk) 22:08, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Since the source I suggest is depreciated, It may be good if someone could back this suggestion for an exception in this case. Or if someone objects to it, then perhaps explain why. --Bensin (talk) 18:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

oppose: pronunciation / IPA isn't necessary. The pronunciation is a standard pronunciation variant in English.  — sbb (talk) 16:34, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The pronunciation of the word "epoch" differs between UK and US English (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epoch), and in the source I supply the host mentions that one frequent question they are asked is the pronunciation. But do I understand you correctly in that you don't oppose to the use of this source for the pronunciation? --Bensin (talk) 17:16, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

No, you completely misunderstand me. I am opposed to the use of this source. I am also opposed to even providing a pronunciation. I clearly stated that the pronunciation is one of the standard variant pronunciations amongst different English types. Even within a few individual EngVars, it's one of several standard variants. A pronunciation guide isn't needed in the article. So there's no need for the source. Frankly, I believe this is an effort to create a justification for the use of this source, by trying to add in some supposed need to explain the pronunciation. I think the desire to use this source is the tail wagging the pronunciation dog.  — sbb (talk) 01:32, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 15 August 2021

Change the phrase "far right" in the introduction to "Conservative". 68.37.17.55 (talk) 03:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. The same request has been made multiple times without enough foundation to implement it. Binksternet (talk) 04:31, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Bona fide conservatives would probably object being in the same category as The Epoch Times. Again this is an encyclopedia not an opinion forum. Please stick to facts.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 August 2021

Change "far right" to "right wing", as the Wikipedia page for Antifa (a known liberal and frequently violent group) is simply described as "left wing". Or the Antifa page needs to be updated to "far left" or "extreme left" for better consistency / remove overt appearance of bias. 2600:100E:B022:B523:2553:5682:FBE0:7FAC (talk) 14:28, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

This is been debated countless times. You bring no argument or facts in support of your claim which is clearly not reflecting the reality. There is no bias. Please respect this encyclopedia, it is not an opinion forum. Gentleman wiki (talk) 02:03, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 22 September 2021

103.105.213.20 (talk) 06:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Not a Far Right.

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. — LauritzT (talk) 11:22, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Look at this Talk page and try to predict whether this attempt will be more successful than the last few dozen. Take into account the amount of reasoning involved on your side.

What is the point of repeating this crap again and again? Wikipedia editors do not fall for argumentum ad nauseam. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 October 2021

Although the epoch times is right wing I wouldn’t say “far-right” (see first sentence) and the reference (number 12) for this seems to just be old reports but no good bias/fact checker. “All sides” for example has listed this paper as center-right. Now I do think it’s a bit further than that personally, but perhaps it should not be labeled “far right” if other organizations that study the biases of news papers/organizations say it is not far right.

Link to the All Sides page for a reference: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/epoch-times-media-bias 2003:C1:FF01:D300:4C1C:F61C:241A:4574 (talk) 11:20, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. AllSides is a new media analysis website, established to normalize right-wing media. They use an opaque ranking system with significant portions given to crowd-sourced opinions, open to outside rigging. Their positions are skewed, not neutral. Binksternet (talk) 13:04, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

(talk) , (talk), (talk), (talk), (talk). I came here because I saw "All Sides" being (largely self-) represented as a determinedly neutral and unbiased news source. Their basis for that claim included a presumably unbiased survey of 5,000 people not otherwise identified. They rated ABC News as "left." That contention seemed a bit dubious to me, given what experience I've had reading ABC as a source for news. It hasn't seemed particularly partisan to me. I thought maybe I'd missed something. So I looked at the other All Sides' stated sources for coming to an opinion and found "Epoch Times," given as being a legitimate rater. I found that contention to be preposterous. This is the house organ for the Falun Gong cult, for goodness sake. That brought me to this Talk article, that has included the opinions of more than a few Wikipedia editors who have weighed in here, on whether the "far right" label was inappropriate. It makes me wonder if there isn't a formidable contingent of WP editors who are capable of possessing the facility to deny reality, kind of like diehard Trump voters who deny his culpability in the January 6th insurrection, or think that COVID-19 vaccinations are some plot against humans by space aliens. There are many references to Falun Gong and Epoch Times that provide contested but clearly solid sourcing for their warnings. Here's just one of the plethora of those sources.<Hettena, Seth (September 17, 2019). "The Obscure Newspaper Fueling the Far-Right in Europe". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved September 10, 2021.> I'm sure my comments here will perturb the adherents of the "space alien conspiracy," but I expect that won't be something I can't handle. Activist (talk) 03:36, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Media Bias - Point of View

The current Wikipedia page on the Epoch Times illustrates quite well the bias in the media when carefully scrutinized in a fair fashion. The first sentence of the article describes this paper as “a far-right international multi-language newspaper…”

While that may or may not be true (and it is certainly an opinion), when one compares this page to the other Wikipedia entries for other wide-circulation papers such as the Washington Post or New York Times, we see opening descriptions for those respective articles do not describe them based on political leanings, but rather as daily US newspapers with wide circulations and then the articles go on to describe various attributes of the Post and the Times.

Of course, both the Washington Post and the New York Times are “liberal-leaning” papers in a similar way that the ET is "right-leaning". The Post and NYT do not usually represent diverse political views in their layouts and present an unbalanced perspective on politics of right versus left - rarely are conservative views expressed in an unbiased fashion. If inherent bias did not exist in the media we would see similar Wikipedia article formats of Washington Post and NYT as a “liberal” or “far-left” newspaper so on and so forth – or at least one could drop the first sentence in the Epoch Times entry and reformat that article.

As a result of the inherent media bias, we cannot get consistent descriptions of the various newspapers in Wikipedia rather we see biased descriptions based on the writer's political viewpoint. The political labeling comments used for the Epoch Times is withheld from descriptions about the New York Times or Washington Post, (realizing the authors are likely different individuals).

It would have been better had the authors of this page reviewed the posted articles on Washington Post or New York Times and framed their encyclopedia article discussion in similar fashion. Certainly, deeper in the discussion could be dialog that the Epoch Times is felt to reflect conservative viewpoints however it should not be the primary discussion point (i.e., labeling) in an encyclopedia page for that newspaper.

Consistency among all writing and fairness in reporting should be a goal of everyone regardless of one's political perspective. We can help eliminate tribalism by doing this more often.

All comments appreciated. Thank you 207.44.84.88 (talk) 13:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Do NYT or WaPo do stuff like this?[43] soibangla (talk) 13:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

That NBC link includes a link to a "credulous" ET article about Q: https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-q-phenomenon_2581642.html along with the NBC claims of entanglement etc. Kdammers (talk) 12:49, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

It is the Epoch Times own positions and rhetoric that makes it far-right, not someone's opinion. Being against vaccination or denying LGBT the right to exist or banning music is not merely "right leaning". In any case you should join an opinion forum and discuss your views with like minded people. This is an encyclopedia. Gentleman wiki (talk) 00:37, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

This article is an undisguised hit piece and thus I am tagging it as biased. Let’s hear from some other, hopefully more neutral editors. Alcmaeonid (talk) 06:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

It is based on reliable independent WP:RSP sources per WP:V. If you find different reports by WP:RSP, you can add them. Llll5032 (talk) 14:34, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I support the removal of what amounts to a WP:DRIVEBYTAG, delivered with a bad-faith slap at the page's crew of editors. If a user can identify and clearly describe a perceived problem then we can constructively address the concern. Binksternet (talk) 15:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The problem is not the sources themselves, it is with the editorial process of a politicized selection and a concereted, consistent negative spin. It amounts to a hit piece on the paper. Where is the requisite balance? It simply doesn't exist. My tag s/b restored or, barring that, an open invitation needs to be set up to invite more neutral voices to be heard. Alcmaeonid (talk) 02:54, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:AGF Llll5032 (talk) 05:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Balance comes from accurately depicting the published sources—the positive and the negative—in roughly the same ratio as they are found in the media. There are some positive things said about the newspaper but they are outweighed by stuff like The New York Times calling it a "global-scale misinformation machine". That's not "negative spin" but thoroughgoing damnation. After The New York Times says your newpaper is a misinformation machine, you are in a deep negative hole. Our job at Wikipedia is to accurately describe this situation, and I think we've done a decent job. Binksternet (talk) 04:16, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Ditto and agree with @Binksternet's statement.  — sbb (talk) 18:30, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

not to mention that Epoch is not far right. What even is the definition of far right anymore? Because comparing to widely agreed upon far right media (like The Stormer), I see no similarity. 2.55.134.13 (talk) 07:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• Wikipedia relies on reliable sources, not on editors' analysis and personal opinions. Kleinpecan (talk) 08:09, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Gentle reminder

Hi all,

This is a gentle reminder that the Epoch Times remains under discretionary sanctions per the Falun Gong arbitration decision. I see some new political editors attempting to make major changes (such as eliding the well-established far-right character of the Epoch Times as a publication from the lede) and thought it'd be politely to point out that, in cases of articles under discretionary sanctions, edit warring is met with very little leeway and it's always wisest to discuss potentially controversial changes at talk carefully before editing. Simonm223 (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Article from the Guardian

[44] Can someone add? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.13.229 (talk) 10:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The reference to “far right” should be removed from the intro.

Here is the into to “The New York Times”:

“The New York Times is an American daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership.[7][8] It was founded in 1851, by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, and was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. [9] The Times has since won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper,[10] and has long been regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record".[11] It is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S.[12]

The paper is owned by The New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded.[13] A. G. Sulzberger and his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.—the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, respectively—are the fifth and fourth generation of the family to head the paper.[14] Since the mid-1970s, The New York Times has expanded its layout and organization, adding special weekly sections on various topics supplementing the regular news, editorials, sports, and features. Since 2008,[15] the Times has been organized into the following sections: News, Editorials/Opinions-Columns/Op-Ed, New York (metropolitan), Business, Sports, Arts, Science, Styles, Home, Travel, and other features.[16] On Sundays, the Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review (formerly the Week in Review),[17] The New York Times Book Review,[18] The New York Times Magazine,[19] and T: The New York Times Style Magazine.[20]”

As you can see, there is no mention of their political leaning in any direction, let alone the first sentence. It violates NPOV and gives Undue Weight to sources that are trying to “other-ize” the paper, especially since I can find more than ten reliable sources, including the New York Times, that call the Epoch Times "conservative", in the sense of "American conservative". The statement that they are “far right” is highly sourced and has a place in the text, not the intro. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The sense of "American conservative" includes the far right, thats one of the things that makes it American. Other political systems have more separation between various ideologies. Not really sure we can compare a real newspaper and the propaganda arm of a fringe religious sect. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

But that’s my point, we can’t “compare” them, it’s not our opinion that counts. There is no opinion in the New York Times intro, there should not be in this newspaper either. Neutral point of view, since it doesn’t matter what we think. It’s either standard to label a newspaper with its ideological leanings in the intro, or it isn’t, it shouldn’t be one way for one and another because ::shrug:: Judgesurreal777 (talk) 20:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thats not how wikipedia works, beyond WP:MOS there is no "standard." See Wikipedia:When to use or avoid "other stuff exists" arguments. I think you also fundamentally misunderstand WP:NPOV which is about reflecting coverage in sources and not the general concept of neutrality. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

You are setting up a false equivalence, one that supposes The Epoch Times is a standard newspaper, which it is not. Instead, it is one of several propaganda arms of a religious sect. Don't expect a propaganda publication to be treated the same as a mainstream newspaper. 20:52, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I’m not, and you know I’m not. It’s sad that Wikipedia’s own policies are thrown aside for editors personal animus toward their personal political enemies. I’ve been on Wikipedia for over 15 years, over 50,000 edits, so I am well aware that articles of similar kind are laid out similarly regardless of their content, and their leads cover similar content. So articles about newspapers either cover their partisan leanings, or they do not. It’s absurd to say newspapers are magically different because you feel they are “fringe” or “a propaganda arm”. NYTimes is completely a propaganda arm of the American liberal far left, but my opinion doesnt matter, and neither does yours. You should care more about Wikipedias beliefs, principles and policies than your personal political slant. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Far left, eh? That's pretty funny, as it doesn't mesh with the consensus of observers. Binksternet (talk) 22:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

If you have significant coverage in WP:RS which says that the NYT is far left or a propaganda arm you are welcome to add it to that article. That has nothing to do with this page here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It's appropriate to include wording along these lines in the lead precisely because one of the defining features of the Epoch Times in reliable sources as of late (circa 2016 onward) is its comparative extremism. After some research, I have noticed that the more frequent characterizations in RS are "right-wing" as well as "conspiratorial"; the "far-right" moniker is not as common (but they are certainly present, and allusions are frequently made to the propensity for the outlet's content to be spread throughout the "online fever swamps of the far right", to quote NYT). It ultimately may be worth it to have a discussion on the merits of far-right versus right-wing, etc., but that's a separate issue from whether or not the political leanings are relevant.WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 00:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Calling the epoch times ‘alt-right’ waters down the definition of the word.

I’m not arguing that the descriptor “alt-right” is wrong, nor that it be entirely removed from the article, as that would be even more incorrect/less truthful. Simply being correct, though, is not the only factor that goes into describing something skillfully.

I’ll let these quotations, from the references at the bottom of the wiki page, speak for themselves:

“While US rightwing outlets like One America News and Newsmax have profited by supplying the seemingly bottomless appetite among the rightwing grassroots for material that depicts American politics as a tangle of elite conspiracies, Carusone says it is a mistake to view the Falung Gong-aligned outlets as normal media companies. The principal goal of Epoch Times – now publishing in 36 countries under the supervision of a network of non-profits – is not to generate profit, he says, but to mount a long and broad “influence operation”. And the goal of that influence operation, in turn, is “to foment anti-CCP sentiment”. ———————— “A newspaper closely affiliated with Falun Gong, a group whose reclusive leader, Li Hongzhi, resides in the United States, the Epoch Times U.S. edition isn’t easy to place on the U.S. political spectrum. Its editorial slant exists primarily to promote the views of the Falun Gong and its leadership’s staunch opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.). The newspaper’s coverage of unrelated U.S. and international issues is otherwise banal.

But the German-language edition of the newspaper, which went web-only in 2012, has become a favored platform for far-right nativism, attracting readers who oppose immigration and support groups such as the far-right populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and anti-immigrant protest group Pegida. As such, Epoch Times Deutschland has become known as a member of the far-right media scene, in the same club as Russia’s state-funded outlets RT and Sputnik, and Kopp Report, a website known for promoting conspiracy theories and right-wing populism.”

Regardless, while there is nuance to be found later in the article, the immediate labeling of alt-right in the first sentence, with no potentially opposing evidence offered until multiple sections into the page, poisons the well, so to speak.

I was randomly recommended this news org by a random, and this wiki page is the first place I went, to vet their bias. Afterwards, I was just plain confused upon exploring their English site for a while. I had expected to walk into a house fire. While I did notice the obvious conservative bias, I was more bored than anything at how sterile the writing seemed; as if they were ripping them straight from the Associated Press. UsersLikeYou (talk) 11:10, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

My apologies for the lack of signature. UsersLikeYou (talk) 11:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Please note that the article describes The Epoch Times as "far-right", not "alt-right". I've just added another high-quality academic source to the article that confirms this:

In contrast, Gab users who shared more far-right "fake news" websites are relatively more visible on Gab. Some of the most cited sources under this category include the Unhived Mind (N = 2,729), Epoch Times (N = 1,303), Natural News (N = 1,301), Breitbart (N = 769), the Gateway Pundit (N = 422), and InfoWars (N = 656).

Zeng, Jing; Schäfer, Mike S. (21 October 2021). "Conceptualizing "Dark Platforms". Covid-19-Related Conspiracy Theories on 8kun and Gab". Digital Journalism. 9 (9). Routledge: 1321–1343. doi:10.1080/21670811.2021.1938165 – via Taylor & Francis.

— Newslinger talk 11:51, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that. I guess I did misread it. I agree that ‘far-right’ is absolutely the correct term to use here, and that it wasn’t used with lack of care.

I suspect that the other similar topic posters in the talk page may have also not appreciated the distinction between the two words(?)

UsersLikeYou (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 March 2022

Please correct the false claim that this is a ‘far-right’ publication. Just because it offers an opposition view, does not make it ‘far’ or extremist in anyway. Please do better at monitoring for propaganda, which is being utilized to discredit dissenting voices. 209.52.88.161 (talk) 22:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. and a reliable source to support your claim - FlightTime (open channel) 22:50, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Cut the BS

The user here is a clear POV pusher. They clearly have no interest in actually editing the article based on policy guidelines and just want to argue about whether ET is “classical liberal” and claim the NYT is a CCP puppet using unreliable COI primary sources. Hatting to prevent further wasted time and disruption. Dronebogus (talk) 09:46, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The single correct political descriptor of Epoch Times is anti-CCP. It is quite cassical liberal, but that wouldn't be much of a political stance. It is hardly conservaive. It isn't far-right and far less conspiratorial than NYT. In late 2020 Epoch published investigative reports about NYTimes and NCB being financed by the CCP in many millions of dollars yearly. Since then NYTimes and NBC have been constantly publishing hit pieces against ET, being careful to imply accusations rather than explicitly state, in order to avoid libel suits. Since then, also, this article became an amalgamation of those accusations implied by NYT and NBC, however they are stated explicitly here. For the benefit and glory of Wikipedia. --Itaj Sherman (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC) For example, the COVID misinfo that ET published, as described here, is what's described by NBC and NYT. It is not what was actually ever published by ET. On the contrary. ET has published that COVID has *possibly* started in a research lab (rather than bat soup market) in late 2020, while at the time NYT and NBC were publishing contradicting missinfo. While they were being financed by the CCP. So there you go. While neither NYT and NBC are or should be described as far-left or even left by Wikipedia, I suppose NYT, NBC and whoever wrote the aricle on ET here, can certainly be described as pro-CCP. --Itaj Sherman (talk) 01:33, 27 March 2022 (UTC) You appear to be looking only at the American scene. The German language version of the "newspaper" has been described as far-right in many media pieces. Certainly the Falun Gong mouthpiece in the US is never going to be described as liberal. If you are trying to cut the legs out from underneath NBC and The New York Times, to prove they are biased or unreliable with regard to the Falun Gong, you have no leverage. There are no reliable sources describing them as unreliable on Falun Gong topics. Binksternet (talk) 01:47, 27 March 2022 (UTC) "Classical liberal" more or less means Libertarian. We have an article Classical liberalism, though I'm not too sure how relevant it is to the Epoch Times... AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 27 March 2022 (UTC) I think you mean "libertarian", not "Libertarian". Classical liberalism is very much unlike libertarianism. They contradict in core issues. It is relevant to ET because most of their publications fit classical liberalism, even more than they fit conservatism. Obviously like any outlet you can find the rare publication that it out of their norm. Itaj Sherman (talk) 18:27, 4 April 2022 (UTC) I think you mean "Liberal" not "liberal". It can be described as liberal, specifically classical liberal. Many european and north american publications do describe classical liberalism as right or far-right. Far-right used to mean fascism, racism or national-supremacism. But I suppose today it just means conservatism and/or classical liberalism. Wikipedia Far-right politics has to be fixed though. Obviously, classical liberals in USA today would find it hard to vote Dem. I wasn't talking about Falun-Gong and I don't know about them apart from them being some religion or meditation group persecuted by the CCP. ET don't talk about Falug-Gong much, other than within the list of CCP persecuted groups. They do talk a lot anti CCP though, and I think they are the most influencial world-wide in that sense. But as you say it is relevant, being pro-CCP, especially depending on finance from the CCP, does require being anti Falun-Gong. One might go so far as naming them Falun-Gong mouthpiece lol. However, I think NYT and NBC are absolutely unreliable about ET. And I wished Wikipedia could overcome such pitfalls, but I don't think there's hope. Itaj Sherman (talk) 18:26, 4 April 2022 (UTC) Could you please cite your sources? X-Editor (talk) 06:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC) The problem here is publication war between ET and NBC NYT, that started around the time ET published that they were being financed by the CCP. While NYT and NBC are considered reliable by Wikipedia, they are absolutely unreliable about ET, it is beneath contempt. Apparently Wikipedia's procedures are unable to manage this pitfall. Itaj Sherman (talk) 18:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC) That "conflict of interest" argument was rejected in a 2020 policy discussion. — Newslinger talk 06:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 April 2022

Request to edit this page as far right is incorrect. SureOverlord (talk) 04:06, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

1. An edit request must not be controversial, IOW you must get a consensus first.
2. It must be backed by reliable sources. You have not provided any.
3. You have not provided alternative wording.
4. The current wording is backed by RS, so your request is denied for all these reasons. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:47, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2022

Change far-right to Conservative. Mmmcse75 (talk) 18:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

>Change far-right to Conservative. This is more a more accurate description of the media company's political bias and pro-democracy stance. The term far-right is reserved for hate speech and domestic terrorist organizations. Mmmcse75 (talk) 18:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Lots of sources currently cited describing the Epoch Times as far-right. Also, that term is not reserved as you claim. Cannolis (talk) 19:35, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect: the term IS reserved as claimed. All you have to do is look at the embedded definition when you click on the word's link in this article!! Wikipedia needs to be very careful here because this is an anti-communist newspaper and it could be perceived that Wikipedia is supporting communism and the CCP by not removing this definition. 58.104.248.40 (talk) 09:28, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

We follow what RS say, and they identify it as far-right (which is extremely conservative). -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:18, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Right wing?

Wikipedia's page describing far-right politics does not include the Epoch Times. Wikipedia's page describing right-wing politics would be closer to the editorial stance taken by the Epoch Times? dmode (talk) 07:55, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no requirement on Wikipedia for the far-right article to discuss The Epoch Times. Frankly, The Epoch Times is not important enough to mention there. Here at this article, everything about The Epoch Times is much more important. And we have multiple high-quality sources describing the newspaper as far-right. Binksternet (talk) 19:15, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 April 2022

Describing The Epoch Times as "far right" is an attempt by the writer and the cited opinion pieces to shift the Overton Window. "Far Right" implies ties to White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, racists, and the like. The Epoch Times is a newspaper with a conservative opinion view and, particularly, as it related to China.

Is Nancy Pelosi "Far Left", as compared to say, Ilhan Omar? The window shifts both ways. And the author/editor should expunge the "far right" label when it isn't even close to appropriate. It's a shameful attempt to shut down/cancel opposing opinion. Stuysquare (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:32, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

White House protocol controversies

The section The_Epoch_Times#White_House_protocol_controversies currently reads, in entirety:

In September 2018, Epoch Times photographer Samira Bouaou broke White House protocol and handed Trump a folder during an official event.[128]

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, "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.[129]

Is this content due for inclusion? Can someone defend the encyclopedic relevance of these incidents, and/or why they warrant their own sub-heading? Did they lead to substantial changes or impacts to the Epoch Times or the White House or anything else, or did they just happen and were dutifully reported on for a news cycle? I realize Wikipedia is not censored, but also Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and things shouldn't be included merely because they are true or verifiable per WP:PROPORTION, WP:VNOTSUFF and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:10YT it could be summarized more encyclopedically. Llll5032 (talk) 00:11, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I added some context and an earlier incident. Llll5032 (talk) 03:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2022

Change: The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party,[27][28] promotes far-right politicians in Europe,[5][7] and has championed former President Donald Trump in the U.S.;[29][30] a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign.[25][31][23] The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation,[34] and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election.[37] In 2020, The New York Times called it a "global-scale misinformation machine".[29] The Epoch Times frequently promotes other Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun.[18][38][29]

To: The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party[27][28] for it's persecution and internment of Falun Gong practitioners, promotes right-leaning politicians in Europe,[5][7] and has championed former President Donald Trump in the U.S. The Epoch Times frequently promotes Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun.[18][38][29] JohnSKepler (talk) 17:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done. Why would we remove the well-researched findings by NBC News and others? Your suggestion would whitewash the topic. Binksternet (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2022 (UTC)