Pressure of Truth
Exposing the spin on all sides of the news.
Outlet profile

The Epoch Times (Opinion)

U.S. right (Falun Gong-affiliated)

Owned byOwned by Epoch Media Group, a nonprofit media network founded by practitioners of Falun Gong (a Chinese spiritual movement banned in China); not owned by a conventional media conglomerate or single billionaire
FundingSubscriptions, heavy direct-mail and digital-ad campaigns, and donations; a former CFO pleaded guilty in 2025 to a $67 million money-laundering scheme that funneled illicit proceeds into the outlet between 2019 and 2022, during which its reported annual revenue grew from about $15 million to roughly $62 million
On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Founded in 2000 by John Tang and other Falun Gong practitioners in the U.S., The Epoch Times began as a multilingual print paper focused on human-rights abuses and censorship in China. It expanded aggressively after 2016 into English-language digital and social media, becoming one of the largest spenders on Facebook political advertising during the 2020 election cycle before Facebook restricted its ad accounts for violating disclosure rules. Its opinion and news coverage has promoted Trump, amplified 2020 election-fraud claims, and at times platformed QAnon-adjacent content, drawing scrutiny from researchers and fact-checkers. In 2024, federal prosecutors charged the outlet's CFO, Weidong "Bill" Guan, with running a multimillion-dollar money-laundering operation that funneled fraud proceeds into the company; he pleaded guilty in 2025. The paper has also published detailed, favorable coverage of Falun Gong and its founder Li Hongzhi, reflecting the outlet's institutional ties to the movement. It positions itself as independent and nonpartisan, but its ownership, editorial priorities, and opinion content show a clear anti-CCP, pro-Trump orientation rather than neutral reporting.

Sources

  1. Former Epoch Times executive pleads guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud scheme that funded newspaper
  2. An Epoch Times executive is facing money laundering charges
  3. Feds Accuse America's Weirdest Media Company Of Being A Money-Laundering Front For The Falun Gong
  4. CFO Weidong 'Bill' Guan, Falun Gong, Epoch Times arrested in $67M multinational money laundering scheme

Profile compiled 2026-10-01; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

← Back to track record