Shen Yun Needed Publicity. The Epoch Times Wrote 17,000 Articles.

A publisher that rose to prominence promoting right-wing conspiracy theories has also served as sword and shield for the dance group and the religious movement behind it.

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• Shen Yun Performing Arts, the classical Chinese dance group famous for its ubiquitous marketing, began its latest world tour last week.Credit...Getty Images
• By Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfeld

The reporters reviewed hundreds of pages of internal emails and documents and interviewed more than two dozen people familiar with The Epoch Times as part of a series of articles on the dance group Shen Yun

Steve Klett was so glad to have landed a job as a reporter at an up-and-coming newspaper in New York that he stuck with it even after his managers made him watch a disturbing video about the torture of a religious group in China.

Another reporter at the publication, The Epoch Times, found it odd that when she joined in 2022, her supervisor directed her to sit at her desk and read two 300-page books about the evils of communism.

But one of the strangest things about the workplace, former employees said, was its apparent obsession with a touring dance group called Shen Yun.

When Shen Yun was performing in town, employees were regularly given free tickets. Reporters were sent to cover the show and often huddled afterward in hotel rooms near the venue, working all night to publish stories. One former reporter recalled colleagues taking quick naps on the floor.

Alongside its regular news coverage, The Epoch Times has published more than 17,000 articles about Shen Yun since 2009 — most of them full of glowing testimonials from audience members, with headlines describing the show as “heavenly,” “incredibly touching,” “flawless” and “the most disciplined performance of any kind.”

The fawning coverage was not a product of quirky editorial judgment or an unusual commitment to chronicling the arts. Rather, it was part of a deliberate strategy to promote Shen Yun — a huge moneymaker for the Falun Gong religious movement — while relentlessly attacking its critics, records and interviews show.

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Nicole Hong is an investigative reporter, focused on covering New York and its surrounding regions.

Michael Rothfeld is an investigative reporter in New York, writing in-depth stories focused on the city’s government, business and personalities.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 31, 2024, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Shen Yun Needed Good Press. One Paper Always Provided It.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: Epoch Times, Falun Gong, Communist Party of China

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