Communism Bundled With Toronto Star

Communism Bundled With Toronto Star

[link to www.theepochtimes.com]

Daniel Friesen said he was alarmed by what his Saturday copy of the Toronto Star had tucked inside it: a copy of the China Daily, an English-language newspaper owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

The China Daily is owned and controlled by China’s ruling regime and among its responsibilities is advancing the party’s viewpoints on everything from Tibet to democracy.

Those viewpoints tend to justify communist authoritarian rule and paint persecuted groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs as violently opposed to the caring rule of the Party and its efforts to help all Chinese.

Friesen said he was surprised to see a Chinese communist newspaper on his doorstep in Canada.

“I thought, what is going on here? These guys are reaching into my house. I wondered why the Star was affiliating itself with a communist paper.”

Every week, around 10,000 subscribers to the Toronto Star get a copy of the China Daily, said Bob Hepburn, communications director for Torstar Printing Group.

“They signed a contract with us for us to print them and distribute them,” explained Hepburn.

Torstar, the Toronto Star’s printing press, has nothing to do with the content, he said, and the China Daily selects where the papers are distributed.

“It is strictly a printing and distribution agreement,” said Hepburn.

The arrangement started in January and has continued since. Hepburn directed specific questions to the China Daily itself and answered most others with assertions that it is strictly a commercial relationship.

“We have nothing to do with their editorial content or production or anything like that, or deciding where the copies go,” he said.

When asked if they were aware the paper was owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hepburn said, “We have many printing contracts. For example, we print the National Post.”

Hepburn repeated that assertion when asked if it mattered the paper was owned by an authoritarian regime that suppresses basic freedoms. Another attempt to question how having a communist newspaper bundled with the Toronto Star could affect the Star’s reputation was met with the same response.