12/27/2019 / By JD Heyes
The one advantage to being an American is that the United States is an open, democratic society. But it comes with a price: Our adversaries use our open, democratic society against us in insidious ways, and very often with the assistance of citizens and institutions you’d think would know better.
While Democrats continue to accuse President Donald Trump of having “colluded” with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election despite the fact that it’s a wholly manufactured narrative by the deep state, China has been working to undermine our country and our institutions with the help of mainstream media outlets.
As reported by WorldNetDaily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, has published hundreds of propaganda articles that are designed to look like regular ‘American’ news stories in papers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and others, and without disclosing its ‘ad’ buys, which is a violation of federal law.
The serial violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act by the outlet China Daily was first discovered and reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The news site noted that when registered as a foreign agent, China Daily is permitted under law to place ads in the U.S., but it is required to fully disclose its buys.
The Free Beacon noted further:
China Daily has published propaganda in mainstream outlets for decades, but did not disclose its purchases of space in American newspapers to the Department of Justice until 2012. Even after it began acknowledging its relationship with the papers, the regime mouthpiece continued to violate federal disclosure requirements. China Daily has failed to provide breakdowns of spending activities and withheld copies of online ads, among other omissions that violate federal law, according to experts who reviewed years of its FARA filings.
In 2012, Natural News reported that the Washington Post was regularly publishing “China Watch,” which a number of journalists and experts in media ethics criticized as improper. They did so because the so-called ‘advertising supplement’ purported to present news and information about China but was instead carefully crafted propaganda aimed at casting the country in a wholly benevolent and positive light. (Related: NBA exposed as a communist China propaganda machine that implicitly supports organ harvesting, slavery and the torture of political prisoners… it’s time to BOYCOTT THE NBA.)
“They need to address the proverbial elephant in the living room — why are you carrying a Communist government-sponsored publication?” Lois Boynton, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said at the time.
“It raises some ethical issues for the Post,” she said, hammering the paper for obfuscating the origins of China Watch. “There are issues of transparency associated with” those initially publishing the content used by the Post in the section, she added.
The Free Beacon’s analysis of China Daily’s activities found that it has run more than 700 online ads that were all designed to look like news stories, as well as 500 purchased print pages in six U.S. newspapers over the course of the past seven years.
The articles frame the Chinese government’s oppression in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong in a positive manner and are actually running alongside regular news stories published by the same outlets.
So, it’s hard to believe that these outlets don’t know the China Daily stories are not propaganda and are simply being placed there for their ‘news value.’
Some U.S. lawmakers are increasingly critical of the practice, including Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He has been a frequent critic of China Daily and he has said that American newspapers are trading credibility for ad revenue.
“These outlets claim to support democracy, but they’ve participated in a cover-up for an ongoing Communist-run genocide,” Banks told the Free Beacon. “It’s disgusting.”
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Tagged Under: ad laws, ad revenue, China, Communist Party, credibility, deception, disinfo, foreign agent, genocide, Journalism, lies, mainstream media, New York Times, Open Society, propaganda, transparency, Wall Street journal, Washington Post
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