The Epoch Times portrays itself as an 'alternative publication' dedicated to objective truth. But can it really be trusted?

Posted April 2021

By Tristan Hansen

Staff Editor

The Epoch Times portrays itself as an “alternative publication” dedicated to objective journalism and impartial reporting. But in an era of rampant misinformation, can it really be trusted?

It’s practically common knowledge at this point that the “mainstream media” severely lacks trust among the American public. According to Gallup’s polling, only around 4 in 10 Americans reported trusting mass media in 2020. This reflects the overall downward trajectory in Americans’ trust of the mainstream media that has been observed since around the 1970s, when around 70% of Americans trusted the news. Distrust of the news is particularly prominent among Republicans, with only 1 in 10 believing the news is generally reported fairly and accurately.

In recent years, Americans’ misgiving towards the mainstream media has facilitated the rise of numerous so-called “alternative publications” claiming to be purveyors of truth and reason amidst a sea of lies and deceit. One such example is One America News Network, often abbreviated as either OANN or OAN. On their website, they pride themselves on supposedly serving as a “credible source for national and international news 24/7.” They’ve also publicly proclaimed themselves as one of the “greatest supporters of Trump”, and have been widely accused by other publications of peddling pro-Trump conspiracy theories and promoting misinformation.

Another, perhaps more enigmatic example of the rise in popularity of alternative publications is The Epoch Times, a New-York based multilingual newspaper that has exploded in popularity over the past several years. Similarly to One America News Network, The Epoch Times’ website states that they report “important news other media ignore,” and portrays their reporting as “clear, fact-based journalism without spin or hidden agendas.” They’ve increased their revenue by more than four-fold over the course of just a few years, going from $3.8 million to 15.5 million between 2016 and 2019, and reach readers in 21 languages across 35 different countries. The issue? Their coverage is highly biased, at times erroneous and conspiratorial, and is rather clearly intended to further the interests of a controversial Chinese religion occasionally referred to as a cult.

The Epoch Times was founded in the year 2000 by John Tang, an observer of the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong (alternatively Falun Dafa). Falun Gong was itself founded in the early 1990s in China by Li Hongzhi, and is said to combine traditional Chinese meditative exercises with elements of mysticism and an ultraconservative worldview. Among other things, the Falun Gong oppose homosexuality, miscegenation, premarital sex, feminism, and modern music, and consider leader Li Hongzhi to be an almost mystical being replete with superhuman powers, such as the ability to walk through walls and levitate. The movement would proceed to quickly gain popularity throughout the 90s among the Chinese public.

“Li Hongzhi simplified meditation and practices that traditionally have many steps and are very confusing,” stated Ming Xia, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York while speaking with NBC News. “Basically it’s like fast food, a quickie.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began seeing the rise of the Falun Gong as an increasingly greater threat to social order and the government’s power until 1999, when the religion was altogether banned in response to a sit-in protest in Beijing attended by around 10,000 practitioners. At this point, Li had already attained permanent resident status in the United States, and would soon begin construction of a sprawling 400-acre compound called Dragon Springs, located in Deerpark, New York. He would also proceed to incorporate vehement anti-communist (and anti-CCP specifically) rhetoric into the religion’s official doctrine.

It’s not entirely accurate to suggest that The Epoch Times is owned by the Falun Gong—although the organizational structure of the paper is still shrouded in mystery, it likely isn’t literally owned by the group—but it does appear to be staffed primarily by Falun Gong practitioners and intended to promote the interests of the Falun Gong movement.

Falun Gong defector Ben Hurley, who was involved in The Epoch Times’ launch in Australia, stated that the paper was “purely evangelical, although perhaps not in the way evangelical Christians might understand.” He suggested it was “a kind of giant PR campaign to warm people to Falun Gong, but not necessarily to convert them.”

On the Falun Gong’s official website, working for The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television (a cable television network similar in content and mission to The Epoch Times) is portrayed as a righteous activity one can partake in on the path to salvation. According to a former practitioner who spoke with The Atlantic, it is taught that the souls of non-believers are shrouded by an evil aura, and that it’s the responsibility of believers to save them by “clarifying the truth” about the righteousness of the movement and the evil of the Communist Party.

Throughout the majority of its existence, The Epoch Times has avoided American politics, primarily covering Chinese issues more directly relevant to the anti-CCP agenda of the Falun Gong. However, this all began changing around 2016, coinciding with Trump’s successful campaign for the presidency. According to former Epoch Times employees, Donald Trump, with his notoriously hawkish outlook towards China, has been embraced by the Falun Gong as a key ally in the battle against Chinese Communism, an almost messiah-like figure who is even viewed by some devout practitioners as a divine being sent from heaven to destroy the CCP. Accordingly, The Epoch Times’ American coverage has become fiercely loyal towards Trump and generally favorable to the American right as a whole, with particular effort being made to cater to conspiratorial fringes.

One such example of this is the publication’s coverage of Spygate, the widely dismissed conspiracy theory accusing the Obama Administration of implanting a spy inside Trump’s campaign for the sake of aiding Clinton’s. The allegations have been regarded as baseless by both prominent Democratic and Republican politicians, but this hasn’t stopped The Epoch Times from dedicating an entire section to validating and legitimizing them.

Furthermore, The Epoch Times have made sure to capitalize fully on the unique opportunity the Covid-19 pandemic has provided them. Given the pandemic’s origin in China and the ongoing debate about the CCP’s culpability in its initial spread, they’ve been given what is essentially a golden opportunity to excoriate the Chinese government and promote their anti-CCP rhetoric to a receptive audience. Besides insisting on referring to Covid-19 as the “CCP virus,” they’ve toyed with conspiracy theories alleging the virus was created in a lab, assertions that have been widely rejected by medical professionals but which have resonated with their newfound right-wing base.

“They’ve been waiting for so long to find some large-scale evidence of the abject villainy of China,” one former New Tang Dynasty employee said of the Falun Gong. “Now COVID comes along and checks off all the boxes.”

In recent months, The Epoch Times have maintained their commitment to an ardently pro-Trump stance by peddling disinformation regarding the legitimacy of the 2020 election results and echoing the widely held belief that false-flag actors were responsible for the events of the January 6th Capital Riot. They’ve even provided the QAnon conspiracy with semi-favorable coverage, too. In fact, it’s even been alleged that they’ve actively promoted such conspiracies through now-deleted videos on the YouTube Channel “Edge of Wonder,” a show that, in addition to affirming the legitimacy of Qanon, also asserts alien abductions are real and that the drug epidemic was manufactured by the “deep state.” Although The Epoch Times claims to have no involvement with the show, both of its hosts, Rob Counts and Benjamin Chasteen, were at least once employed with the paper, and The Times has promoted it in numerous Facebook posts.

Besides taking a staunchly pro-Trump editorial stance and promulgating numerous pro-Trump conspiracy theories, The Epoch Times have backed Trump in a number of other ways, the most noteworthy of which being their lavish spending on pro-Trump political ads. The Atlantic report that The Times spent a total of $11 million on Facebook ads throughout 2019, including $1.5 million on around 11,000 Trump ads over a 6 month period—more than any organization besides the Trump campaign itself and far more than many Democratic candidates spend on themselves. These advertising efforts eventually resulted in Facebook banning The Times from any further advertisement on their platform, due to violations of their policy regarding ad transparency.

The publication’s backing of right-wing politicians hasn’t been confined to America, with the Times extending into and providing favorable coverage of right-wing politicians in Europe as well. They’ve achieved significant popularity in Germany in particular, with The New Republic reporting that they routinely rank in the top 10 most popular news sites on German social media. Supporters of the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a right-wing populist party known for its Euroscepticism and Anti-Immigration stance and often regarded as far-right, seem to have taken a particular liking to The Epoch Times’ coverage, with German newspaper Die Zeit remarking that “hardly any medium is as popular with AfD supporters as The Epoch Times.” The Times’ promotion of conspiracy theories seems even more brazen in Germany, with the German edition of the paper embracing everything from chemtrail alarmism to Pizzagate.

Ultimately, The Epoch Times, with their idiosyncratic blend of legitimate news, religious fervor, conspiracy-peddling, and political opportunism, can perhaps best be viewed as a case study in the type of publication our current, tumultuous political landscape and media environment is helping to create. In an era in which people are increasingly distrustful of traditional news sources and authority and feel compelled to turn to all-encompassing conspiracy theories to inform their worldview, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that The Epoch Times and other such publications have been able to rise to such prominence, and there’s little doubt that this pattern will continue well into the future. At the end of the day, if we want answers regarding this ongoing phenomenon, perhaps the “mainstream media” ought to look inwards and ask why they lost the public’s faith in the first place.