Up for a brief journalism quiz? Of course you are — or so I will assume. Let’s begin.
Name a news outlet that publishes separate English-language additions for the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe, and also offers its product in 21 other languages spoken around the globe. That’s even more than offered by Reuters, the most widely translated international wire service, which offers 16.
Need more hints? OK.
This mystery outlet is run by a faith group that claims tens of thousands of adherents in more than 70 nations. The group burst on the scene in the late 20th century and has been harshly persecuted by its homeland’s ruthlessly authoritarian government.
Additionally, the same faith group sponsors a traveling cultural dance extravaganza (no peeking until the quiz is over, please) that, until the coronavirus epidemic largely shut down live performances, advertised widely on American television and at local malls.
Still in the dark?
It’s motto is “Truth and Tradition” and, as of this writing (this past Monday) it’s declined to join the preponderance of other news media — including Fox, heretofore among the staunchest of pro-Trump media platforms — that have called former Vice President Joseph Biden the 2020 presidential-election winner.
As of this date, our mystery news source has even declined to place Michigan or Wisconsin in the Biden win column — not to mention Pennsylvania, Arizona or Nevada — maintaining that it will not do so until all of President Donald Trump’s legal ballot challenges have been resolved.
Have you guessed the platform in question?
The answer is The Epoch Times, published by the spiritual, and fervently anti-Beijing, movement known primarily in the West as Falun Gong. The movement, while a relatively new formulation, draws its philosophical roots from ancient Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and folk traditions.
Over the years, GetReligion writers have mentioned Falun Gong — along with underground Christian churches, Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, and others — in dozens of posts focused on the persecution of religious minority groups in China.
So why mention Falun Gong, also know as Falun Dafna, yet again?