The Sing Tao Daily (also known as Sing Tao Jih Pao; t=星島日報) is among Hong Kong's oldest Chinese language newspapers.
Sing Tao's Toronto edition is partly owned by Star Media Group, the publisher of the Toronto Star, a Torstar Corporation company.
History
Sing Tao Daily is the oldest
Chinese language daily newspaper in Hong Kong, having commenced publication on 1 August 1938.
[ Sing Tao Holdings Ltd Annual Report 2002, Profile of the Group]
The first overseas edition of the paper was launched in 1963 in San Francisco, where the group’s first overseas office was set up in May 1964.
In 1992, Sing Tao Daily, encountering financial difficulties, established a joint publication with the International Culture Publishing Corporation, a front organization for China's Ministry of State Security according to Alex Joske.
Until 2002, the parent company of Sing Tao Daily was Sing Tao Holdings; since then it has been Sing Tao News Corporation.
In June 2021, a real estate developer's daughter from mainland China purchased a majority stake in the company.
In August 2021, the U.S. branch of Sing Tao Daily started to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) at the order of the United States Department of Justice. The company said the incident involved libel and it would seek legal actions.
Political stance
The
Sing Tao has a long pro-government history. Before the handover of Hong Kong to China, it supported the
Kuomintang and British Hong Kong government; and once Hong Kong was transferred and turned into a special administrative region, the paper turned its support to the Beijing government.
Reports of Chinese Communist Party influence
A 2001 article by the Jamestown Foundation claimed that two of
Sing Tao's owners were members of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and one editor had previously worked for
China Daily.
According to a Hoover Institution report,
Sing Tao has fallen under Beijing's control after being purchased by a pro-Beijing businessman in May 2001 and now aligns with that of Chinese
state media.
In 2013 an analyst at
Freedom House wrote in a report submitted to the Center for International Media Assistance that in recent decades, several publications including
Sing Tao showed patterns that signaled pressure within the media industry to reduce its criticism of the government, including "
self-censorship", terminations of "high-risk" contributors, high turnover rates of journalists due to "unpalatable editorial policy", and subtle changes in the coverage of politically sensitive topics such as the Three Ts.
See also
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Headline Daily
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Newspapers of Hong Kong
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Media in Hong Kong
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Newspaper Society of Hong Kong
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Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulations
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The Standard (Hong Kong)
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Sing Tao Daily (Canada)
External links
