 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Sing Tao Newspaper Group Limited |
| Founded | 1938 |
| Political alignment | Pro-Beijing (historicallypro-ROC) |
| Headquarters | 7 Chun Cheong Street,Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate,Hong Kong Overseas: 188Lafayette Street,New York City 10013,United States |
| Website | www |
| Sing Tao Daily | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 星島日報 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 星岛日报 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
TheSing Tao Daily (also known asSing Tao Jih Pao;Chinese:星島日報) is amongHong Kong's oldest Chinese language newspapers.[1] It is owned bySing Tao News Corporation, of which Kwok Ying-shing (Chinese:郭英成) is chairman. Its English-language sister is thefree newspaperThe Standard.
Sing Tao's Toronto edition is partly owned byStar Media Group, the publisher of theToronto Star, aTorstar Corporation company.[2]
Sing Tao Daily is the oldestChinese language daily newspaper in Hong Kong, having commenced publication on 1 August 1938.[3]
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.[3]
In 1992,Sing Tao Daily, encountering financial difficulties, established a joint publication with the International Culture Publishing Corporation, afront organization forChina's Ministry of State Security according toAlex Joske.[4]
Until 2002, the parent company ofSing Tao Daily wasSing Tao Holdings; since then it has beenSing Tao News Corporation.[5]
In June 2021, a real estate developer's daughter from mainland China purchased a majority stake in the company.[6][7]
In August 2021, the U.S. branch ofSing Tao Daily started to register as aforeign agent under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA) at the order of theUnited States Department of Justice. The company said the incident involved libel and it would seek legal actions.[8][6][7]
TheSing Tao has a long pro-government history. Before the handover of Hong Kong to China, it supported theKuomintang andBritish Hong Kong government; and once Hong Kong wastransferred and turned into aspecial administrative region, the paper turned its support to the Beijing government.[9][10]
A 2001 article by theJamestown Foundation claimed that two ofSing Tao's owners were members ofChinese People's Political Consultative Conference and one editor had previously worked forChina Daily.[11] According to aHoover 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 Chinesestate media.[12] In 2013 an analyst atFreedom House wrote in a report submitted to theCenter for International Media Assistance that in recent decades, several publications includingSing 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 asthe Three Ts.[13]
