People protest the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China during a march in Washington in 2015. (Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
The Post regularly features a “paid supplement” from the Chinese Communist Party-run China Daily. Though disclaimers make clear that The Post does not espouse the published views, there are reasons to think it and other American media should do more to limit such content.
For instance, the Jan. 25 supplement took aim at Shen Yun Performing Arts, a Chinese cultural performance show, solely because its creators and performers include members of the Falun Gong faith community. As documented by the State Department, Amnesty International and U.N. monitors, members of this faith are targeted for severe persecution by China, as are independent Christian groups, Tibetan Buddhists and others.
You would not learn that from China Daily, though. The article says readers would do well to heed calls to boycott a show based solely on the religion of those involved with it. Should U.S. media profit from such hate speech?
At the moment, we allow foreign states to dress up propaganda in a “news”-like package, simply because they can afford the advertising space. A more restrictive policy, limiting such access in egregious cases, might be wiser — and more humane.
Terri E. Marsh, Washington
The writer is a lawyer with the
Human Rights Law Foundation.