World Journal


World Journal is a daily Chinese language broadsheet newspaper published in North America. It is the largest Chinese language newspaper in the United States and one of the largest Chinese language newspapers outside of China, with a daily circulation of 350,000. The newspaper is headquartered in the College Point neighborhood of Queens in New York City.
World Journal is published in major cities in the United States with large overseas Chinese populations including New York as well as Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The publication is widely sold in many Chinatowns and major suburbs. Subscription is available in the United States and Canada.

History

The newspaper began on February 12, 1976. Originally its headquarters were in Chinatown, Manhattan, in New York City. The headquarters relocated to nearby Whitestone, Queens, in 1980, where it has since remained.
The World Journal has the largest circulation among a Chinese American and Chinese Canadian readership. The publication is owned by the same media conglomerate that runs the United Daily News in Taiwan and carries a significant Taiwanese American administrative presence. Until the mid-1990s, it was viewed as 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 substantially since it began increasing its coverage of mainland China. Following the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, such coverage increased to two pages per day. A rapid shift to neutralism toward mainland China also occurred in the early 1990s as part of an attempt to expand its readership to recently arrived Chinese immigrants to the United States, including those who left the mainland after the expansion of access to permanent resident 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 the 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 protests 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.

The newspaper has diversified in content and covers world business and politics, including proceedings at the United Nations Headquarters, as well as entertainment and human interest stories.
The World Journals recent competitor is The China Press.
World Journal ceased publication in Canada on January 1, 2016, to better focus their business in the United States.

Controversies

Ties to the Chinese Communist Party

A 2001 report on Chinese media censorship by the Jamestown Foundation cited the World Journal as one of four major overseas Chinese newspapers directly or indirectly controlled by Beijing.
"The dominant Chinese media vehicle in America is the newspaper," wrote the report's lead author Mei Duzhe. "Four major Chinese newspapers are found in the U.S.—World Journal, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao Daily News, and The China Press. Of these four, three are either directly or indirectly controlled by the government of Mainland China, while the fourth has recently begun bowing to pressure from the Beijing government."
The report outlined World Journals efforts to develop business ties with Mainland China by self-censoring their own content. For example, Chinese Consulates in both New York and San Francisco have pressured World Journals local offices to not publish ads related to Falun Gong. The New York office acquiesced in full and did not publish the ads, while the San Francisco office kowtowed in part by burying the ads among the paper's least viewed pages, the report said.

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. Chinese Daily News appealed the ruling in the district court, with proceedings held in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2011, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Ninth Circuit for reconsideration in light of Dukes. On September 13, 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected the district court's grant of class certification under FRCP Rule 23. Upon remand at the district court level, Plaintiffs once again moved for class certification, and the district court recertified the class.
Chinese Daily News thereafter filed a FRCP Rule 23 Petition to Appeal, which the Ninth Circuit granted on August 22, 2014. This matter is currently pending briefing at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. The Los Angeles area-based Chinese Daily News was later amalgamated into the New York City-headquartered World Journal.

Discrimination against breastfeeding women

On October 21, 2013, World Journal published a controversial article that allegedly discriminated against breastfeeding women. Titled "Breastfeeding photos embarrass Chinese-American to death," the article cited anonymous resources, labeled breastfeeding photos as "R-rated-photos," described those photos as "disturbing" and "disgusting." The article received strong reaction among Chinese American Community and the Taiwanese Breastfeeding Association launched a protection against World Journal. Media Watch criticized that the report was "misleading" and "biased."
It was also reported that World Journal allegedly failed to accommodate employees' legal nursing needs. Chinese American journalist and author To-wen Tseng blogged about her experience of being forced to pump her breast milk in a bathroom stall, and was harassed by colleagues for attempting to wash pumping accessories in the office kitchen. In November 2013, submitted a lawyer's letter to World Journal, requesting a policy change and supervisor training regarding nursing employee's legal rights.
The World Journal disputed the employee's claims, but agreed to settle the case. On August 25, 2014, World Journal made a policy change as requested and paid for the damage.