World Journal

The World Journal (Canadian edition)

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner(s)	World Journal
Founded	1976
Political alignment	originally pro-Taiwan; now neutral[citation needed]
Language	Chinese
Headquarters	Whitestone, Queens, New York City
Official website	World Journal — official web site (in Chinese)

World Journal (Chinese: 世界日報; pinyin: Shìjiè Rìbào, formerly known as Chinese Daily News in Los Angeles) is a daily Chinese language newspaper serving overseas Chinese in North America. The newspaper has its headquarters in Whitestone, Queens, New York City.^[1][2]

It is published in major cities containing large Chinese-speaking populations including Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Houston in the United States as well as Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.^[3] The newspaper is widely sold in many Chinatowns in these cities and other major Chinese suburbs. Subscription by mail is also available throughout the U.S. and Canada. World Journal has a daily circulation of 350,000, and it is the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States.

History

The newspaper began on February 12, 1976. Originally its headquarters were in Chinatown, Manhattan. The headquarters has been located in Whitestone, Queens since 1980.^[2]

The newspaper has the largest circulation among a Chinese American and Chinese Canadian readership. World Journal is owned by the same media conglomerate that runs the United Daily News in Taiwan and is mostly run by Taiwanese Americans. Until the mid-1990s, it was viewed as very hostile to the People's Republic of China, in part because the paper referred to people from mainland China as "Communist Chinese." Furthermore, its coverage on mainland China usually comprised only one article or so each day out of dozens of pages and sections.

However, the newspaper has changed rather drastically ever since it began increasing its coverage of mainland China. Following the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, coverage increased to two pages each day. A rapid shift to neutralism also occurred in the early 1990s as part of an attempt to expand its readership to recently arrived Chinese immigrants, most of whom left the mainland after the expansion of access to green cards following the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. The other reason for the rapid shift was rooted in the newspaper's sympathy to the Chinese democracy movement. The shift was further strengthened during mid-1990s in part due to the new wave of mainland Chinese immigrants to North America and in part due to political developments in Taiwan, where multi-party elections have been allowed.

Like its parent the United Daily News, the World Journal is widely seen as taking an editorial line that favors the pan-Blue coalition and the Kuomintang. It also opposes the Taiwanese independence ideology of the pan-Green coalition. Consequently, this editorial position has made it much less hostile toward the People's Republic since the 1990s. Immediately after the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, the newspaper no longer referred indiscriminately to all mainland Chinese as "Communist Chinese," and additionally praised pro-democracy efforts on the mainland. During the mid-1990s, it began to give credit to the positive progress made in mainland China, and by the late-1990s, it began to criticize wrongdoings within the Chinese democracy movement and in the West in the same manner with which it criticizes corruption within the Chinese communist regime. After 2000, there has also been a marked increase in the representation of mainland Chinese immigrants on the newspaper's reporting staff. The anti-Taiwan independence editorial positions that the paper has taken have also made it popular among mainland Chinese immigrants to the United States.

Labor law violation

On January 10, 2007, a Southern California jury found the Monterey Park-based Chinese Daily News responsible for failing to give employees breaks, lunches, and overtime, and awarded the plaintiffs $2.5 million. The plaintiffs alleged that they worked over twelve hours per day, were not provided accurate pay statements, and were unfairly interfered with during unionization attempts. In 2001, the employees voted to join the Communication Workers of America, but the National Labor Relations Board vacated the union vote after finding that the election was tainted.^[4]

See also

• Chinese Americans in New York City
• List of newspapers in Canada

References

External links

• World Journal
• World Journal - East Coast Boston/New England Branch