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Ominous Beginnings
During the nascent stage of the Falun Gong human rights crisis, the New York Times was seemingly preoccupied with distorting Falun Gong beliefs and currying favor with the Chinese communist leadership, even as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and others produced ground-breaking and award-winning journalism about the crackdown.
Western media were taken by surprise by a peaceful gathering of over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners outside the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in April 1999. They were responding to escalating harassment and the recent arrest of 40 people in a nearby city. Very little was known about the spiritual practice, despite its growing popularity among Chinese people over the prior seven years.
As events escalated, culminating in the launch of a nationwide persecution campaign in July 1999, Western media coverage remained relatively shallow, offering a combination of Chinese government statements and basic facts of visible events. As expected, throughout the latter half of 1999, Western media investigation into and reporting on Falun Gong gained more depth as reporters on the ground gained better insight into the nascent crisis.
Over the next three years, however, a stark and disturbing divergence occurred between the New York Times coverage of Falun Gong and other major media.
Investigative reporting and debunking of CCP propaganda by other major media
Beginning in late 1999, the Wall Street Journal embarked on a bold and thorough investigation into the Falun Gong human rights crisis, resulting in a Pulitzer-prize winning series of 10 articles published throughout 2000, disclosing the rampant detention and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, including deaths in custody. Additionally, in 2002, the Wall Street Journal was the first major Western news outlet to scrutinize the CCP’s transnational repression campaign against Falun Gong in the United States.
During this same time period the Washington Post offered ground-breaking coverage of Falun Gong in China. The November 12, 1999 article “Cracks in China’s Falun Gong Crackdown” was one of the first international media reports to accurately identify then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin as the sole instigator of the crackdown and the one who gave the order to label Falun Gong a so-called “cult.” The February 6, 2001 article “Human Fire Ignites Chinese Mystery” was the first and only major Western news story to investigate the individuals allegedly involved in a Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident, whom the CCP claimed were Falun Gong practitioners. The article demonstrated that some of the participants did not practice Falun Gong, despite the CCP’s propaganda onslaught using the event to vilify the practice and turn the Chinese and international public against Falun Gong. And with the August 5, 2001 article “Torture is Breaking Falun Gong,” the Washington Post became the first Western media outlet to publish details of Beijing’s explicit directive to use torture on Falun Gong, and the devastating cost on people around the country.
Shallow reporting and negative portrayals of Falun Gong by the New York Times
During this same time period, by comparison, Times coverage of Falun Gong, with two possible exceptions, lacked on-the-ground investigation, relying almost entirely on statements from Chinese government sources or highly visible protests to drive its news coverage, which was dominated by inaccurate and negative portrayals of Falun Gong teachings. One such example was Craig Smith’s “Rooting out Falun Gong; China Makes War on Mysticism” (April 30, 2000). While the headline suggests a news piece offering insight into the Chinese regime’s repressive campaign, in reality, the article is little more than Smith’s personal rant against Falun Gong, riddled with his own seemingly secular readings and misinterpretations of Falun Gong writings and beliefs.
Such portrayals were not an isolated incident, however. From 1999 through 2002, the Times published a total of 58 news articles focused on Falun Gong in China. Among these, 44 carry negative and inaccurate depictions of Falun Gong, with 9 providing a neutral description, and the remaining 5 offering no meaningful characterization.
Pie chart of descriptions of Falun Gong in The New York Times news articles focused on rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
In terms of substance, only 2 of the 58 articles lead with original, on-the-ground investigation and reporting (as opposed to news triggered by statements or actions of others). One of them was Craig Smith’s “A Movement in Hiding” (July 5, 2001) that is centered around an interview with a single Falun Gong practitioner, “Lloyd Zhao,” but is riddled with false and misleading characterizations of Falun Gong beliefs. The other, Elisabeth Rosenthal’s “Beijing in Battle With Sect: ‘A Giant Fighting a Ghost’” (January 26, 2001) is the most informative work by the Times during this three year period. However, it features the inaccurate and denigrating ‘sect’ label in the headline and states, as fact, that five Falun Gong believers set themselves on fire on Tiananmen Square, a narrative that the Washington Post would disprove just ten days later with its own original investigative reporting.
Indeed, the Times’ coverage of the self-immolation incident from the outset accepted at face value the Chinese state media’s version of events—that these were Falun Gong fanatics who were harming themselves—and repeated that to its readers, alongside gruesome depictions of the regime’s propaganda emerging from the event. This despite the fact that Falun Gong prohibits suicide and that the so-called believers were performing the meditation exercises incorrectly, among other inconsistencies. The Times’ misleading depictions continued even months after the above mentioned Post investigation found that a key participant had never been seen practicing Falun Gong.
Private meeting with Jiang Zemin, architect of the persecution
Perhaps the most striking and unique event during this time period, however, was not anything the Times published, but rather, an August 2001 meeting between a Times delegation (including its then-publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.), and Jiang Zemin – the man identified by the Washington Post less than a year earlier as the principle architect of the crackdown. According to a report by Smith in 2017, the goal of the meeting was to explore the possibility of a Chinese-language version of the Times and perhaps other business interests. The delegation also raised concerns about nytimes.com being blocked in China. Days after the meeting, nytimes.com was unblocked, and remained accessible to Mainland readers for the next ten years. The Times also published excerpts from its exclusive interview with Jiang.
Thus, as the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post were producing Pulitzer-prize-winning and ground-breaking journalism, the crowning achievement of the New York Times during the same period was advancing the Times business interests in China, while offering reporting on Falun Gong riddled with inaccurate and negative characterizations.
This ominous beginning set the stage for the next 20+ years of irresponsible journalism, as the Times ventured further down the path of vilifying Falun Gong beliefs and teachings, while ignoring gross and well-documented human rights abuses against believers of the spiritual practice.