Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Falun Gong outside mainland China/1

Falun Gong outside mainland China[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: delisted (t · c) buidhe 13:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added this to the article's talk page, but the convenience of reassessors, I'll go ahead and add this here as well:

Looking at this article, it's clear that this article would look very different if it were rewritten in 2020 with reliable secondary sources. This is so much so the case that anyone looking at this article after 2016 with familiarity with be quite confused—or mistake it as another piece from one of the organization's many propaganda arms. Here's some recent coverage of the activities of the new religious group exterior to mainland China:

Braslow, Samuel. 2020. "Inside the Shadowy World of Shen Yun and Its Secret Pro-Trump Ties". Los Angeles Magazine. March 9, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Among other pronouncements, [Falung Gong founder and leader Hongzhi] Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group’s wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism.

In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong’s ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li.

Relatively unknown before 2016, Epoch Times enjoyed a surge in traffic after the presidential election thanks to stridently pro-Trump content. NBC News reported in 2017 that the site was drawing millions of visitors a year, more than The New York Times and CNN combined. But Falun Gong didn’t restrict its pro-Trump stance to the paper.

This article discusses a shift that occured in 2017, and, indeed, from that time the vast majority of sources start popping up. It appears coverage has only snowballed since, a risk the organization seems willing to take to continue to wield political influence. Let's continue digging through media coverage:

Roose, Kevin. 2020. Epoch Times, Punished by Facebook, Gets a New Megaphone on YouTube. The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Little is known about The Epoch Times’s finances and organizational structure. The nonprofit Epoch Times Association, which operates it, reported $8.1 million in revenue and $7.2 million in expenses on its 2017 public tax filings. An investigation by NBC News last summer found ties between the outlet and other Falun Gong-affiliated organizations, such as the Shen Yun dance performance series and the video broadcaster [New Tang Dynasty, New Tang Dynasty Television ], and said the organizations 'appear to share missions, money and executives.' ... Three former Epoch Times employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the organization .. described its staff as primarily Falun Gong practitioners, many of whom had little previous experience in journalism. Editorial employees, they said, were encouraged to attend weekly “Fa study” sessions outside work hours, during which they would gather to study the teachings of Falun Gong’s spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi. ... The Epoch Times has long denied having direct ties to Falun Gong. Mr. Gregory said that the organization was primarily funded through subscriptions and ads, and that "donations are a small part of our income."

Hmm, alright. Let's take a look at the NBC article that this entry mentions:

Collins, Zadrozny & Ben Collins. 2019. "Trump, QAnon and an impending judgment day: Behind the Facebook-fueled rise of The Epoch Times". NBC News. August 20, 2019. Online.

Quote:

Despite its growing reach and power, little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times.

The outlet’s opacity makes it difficult to determine an overall structure, but it is loosely organized into several regional tax-free nonprofits. The Epoch Times operates alongside the video production company, NTD, under the umbrella of The Epoch Media Group, a private news and entertainment company whose owner executives have declined to name, citing concerns of "pressure" that could follow.

The Epoch Media Group, along with Shen Yun, a dance troupe known for its ubiquitous advertising and unsettling performances, make up the outreach effort of Falun Gong, a relatively new spiritual practice that combines ancient Chinese meditative exercises, mysticism and often ultraconservative cultural worldviews. Falun Gong’s founder has referred to Epoch Media Group as “our media,” and the group’s practice heavily informs The Epoch Times’ coverage, according to former employees who spoke with NBC News.

... In 2009, the founder and leader of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, came to speak at The Epoch Times' offices in Manhattan. Li came with a clear directive for the Falun Gong volunteers who comprised the company’s staff: “Become regular media.”

And more straightforward discussion from MSNBC, reporting on an NBC article discussed below:

Ruhle, Stephanie. 2019. "Pro-Trump news outlet The Epoch Times funded by Chinese spiritual group". August 20, 2019. MSNBC. Online.

Caption quote:

NBC News has exclusively learned that the popular conservative news site The Epoch Times is funded by a Chinese spiritual community called Falun Gong, which hopes to take down the Chinese government.

The NBC article refers to an article by The New Yorker:

Tolentino, Jia. 2019. "Stepping into the Uncanny, Unsettling, World of Shen Yun". The New Yorker. Online.

Quote:

Falun Gong also has its own media outlet, a newspaper called the Epoch Times, which was founded in 2000. (The chairman of the newspaper’s board has said that it is “not a Falun Gong newspaper,” because “Falun Gong is a question of an individual’s belief.”) The paper skews conservative: among its recent pieces are stories headlined “Why We Should Embrace President Trump’s Nationalism,” “Government Welfare: A Cancer Known as Communism,” and “President Trump, Build the Wall.” It also is the world’s foremost purveyor of Shen Yun content, publishing such stories as “Excited Fans Welcome Shen Yun at Taiwanese Airport,” “The Vivid Storytelling of Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra,” and “Shen Yun Audiences Already Waiting for Next Year."

And a few years back, here in Germany, referring to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD):

Busvine, Douglas. 2018. "German far right far ahead in use of social media". Reuters. September 13, 2018. Online.

Quote:

Instead, the researchers found that AfD supporters amplified the reach of media coverage of stories that the AfD posted or commented on. Social media users sympathetic to the party often tweeted links to stories in Die Welt, a conservative daily, but also to right-wing media outlets.

These included news sites such as Junge Freiheit and the German edition of the Epoch Times, which is part of a media group set up by Chinese-American members of the Falun Gong sect and focuses on the same immigration issues at the heart of the AfD platform.

There are many, many, many more sources out there discussing these topics—thousands—and in fact we can and should dig further into these topics. Additionally, this does not take into account the various other extensions of the organization, such as the Society of Classical Poets, which fly a little further under the radar but with aligned goals.

This article needs reassessment and, frankly, a total rewrite. I've tagging it for NPOV and a total rewrite in the mean time. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:52, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]