The paper is owned by Ta Kung Wen Wei Media Group,which is controlled by the liaison office of the Chinese government in Hong Kong.[3]Wen Wei Po is subsidised by and advocates for the Chinese government.[4]:139Wen Wei Po accounts for less than 1 percent of Hong Kong's readership,[4]:139 and is mainly read by an audience in mainland China and older Hong Kong readers.[1]:20
In a 2019 public opinion survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong,Wen Wei Po was rated by respondents as the second least credible paid newspaper in Hong Kong.[5]
History
Wen Wei Po was founded in Shanghai in January 1938. The Hong Kong edition was first published on 6 September 1948.
In the 1980s,Xinhua News Agency,which served as the de facto Chinese embassy to Hong Kong,reduced its control over Wen Wei Po to reflect China's guarantee of "one country,two systems" after sovereignty over Hong Kong is transferred to China in 1997.[6]:123
In 1989,Wen Wei Po published an editorial criticizing the People's Liberation Army for its crackdown of protesters in Tiananmen Square. The paper reported what it claimed was a firsthand account from a 20-year-old Tsinghua University student,whose identity was kept confidential.[7] This account alleged that soldiers first set up over ten machine guns in front of the Heroes Monument and mass fired into the crowd of students inside Tiananmen square,and mowing them down.[7]The New York Times gave this supposed eyewitness account prominent display on 12 June,a week after the events. However,no evidence has ever confirmed the account or the existence of the supposed witness.[8] According to Jay Mathews writing in the Columbia Journalism Review,the story was not factual—all verified eyewitness accounts say that all students remaining in the square were allowed to leave peacefully—and that instead hundreds of workers and Beijing residents did die that night but "in a different place and different circumstances",which had included soldiers shooting many on the stretches of Chang'an Avenue,about a mile west of the square,and in scattered confrontations throughout the city,where some soldiers were beaten or burned to death by angry workers.[9]Lee Tze Chung,the president of the newspaper since 1951,was dismissed,[10] and editor-in-chief Kam Yiu-yu went into exile in the United States.[11] Following the dismissals,Wen Wei Po received financial support from the Chinese government to repair the image of China following the military crackdown in Beijing.[6]:124
In 2016,Dot Dot News was established in the same office as Wen Wei Po in Hing Wai Industrial Centre in Tin Wan.[14][15]
Content
Editorial position
Wen Wei Po has been described as pro-China and leftist.[1]:14
According to The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration With China,a book written by Ming K. Chan,Wen Wei Po is a "mouthpiece" of the Chinese government.
Despite their low credibility and dismal circulation in Hong Kong, these mouthpieces are well-financed by advertising revenues from the PRC companies...Wen Wei Po has received more funds...Both papers print many Xinhua-initiated commentaries under pseudonym aimed to criticize and intimidate China's critics.[16]
Space and military news
Wen Wei Po is known to periodically leak first hand information about the PRC's space program and military buildup. Examples of this occurring include the advanced launch date of the Shenzhou 7 mission.[17]
↑ "Contact Us". Wen Wei Po. Archived from the original on 13 July 2020. Retrieved 22 June 2020. 香港 香港仔田灣海旁道7號興偉中心2-4樓 Head Office：3/F, Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Pr aya Road, Aberdeen, HK.
1 2 Lee, Chin-Chuan (1997). "Media Structure and Regime Change in Hong Kong". In Chan, Ming K. (ed.). The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration with China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. pp.113–147. ISBN9622094414.
↑ Cheung, Ka-man (14 September 2019). "【逃犯條例】點新聞fb專頁被刪另開新帳戶 曾以輕生者作假新聞"[Dot Dot News relaunches Facebook page after misinformed report] (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). HK01.
↑ "點、橙、輕、G、堅.... 建制網媒出沒注意！"[A list of Pro-Beijing news sites and Facebook pages] (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Stand News. 15 August 2016. Archived from the original on 14 August 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
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