Trump: militant attacks ‘all over Europe,’ some not reported

Donald Trump speaking

By Steve Holland

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday accused the news media of ignoring attacks by Islamist militants in Europe.

Trump, who has made defeating Islamic State a core goal of his presidency, did not specify which attacks were going unreported, which news media organizations were ignoring them, or offer any details to support his claims.

“All over Europe, it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,” he told a group of about 300 U.S. troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

“And, in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that,” he added, without saying what those reasons were.

The White House later released a list of 78 attacks around the world from September 2014 to December 2016.

“Networks are not devoting to each of them the same level of coverage they once did,” a White House official said. “This cannot be allowed to become the ‘new normal.'”It was Trump’s latest salvo against the news media, a favorite target for derision that he says broadly underestimated his chances during the presidential campaign. He has kept up the attacks since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump at one point cited attacks in the French cities of Paris and Nice, which were widely covered. More than 230 people have died in France alone in the past two years at the hands of attackers allied to Islamic State.

Al Tompkins at The Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, dismissed Trump’s criticism.

“To suggest that journalists have some reason not to report ISIS attacks is just outlandish,” Tompkins said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Kremlin says it wants apology from Fox News over Putin comments

Putin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Monday it wanted an apology from Fox News over what it said were “unacceptable” comments one of the channel’s presenters made about Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly described Putin as “a killer” in the interview with Trump as he tried to press the U.S. president to explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart. O’Reilly did not say who he thought Putin had killed.

“We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Fox News and O’Reilly did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Trump’s views on Putin are closely scrutinized in the United States where U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Moscow of having sponsored computer hacking to help Trump win office, and critics say he is too complimentary about the Russian leader.

Trump, when commenting on the allegations against Putin in the same interview, questioned how “innocent” the United States itself was, saying it had made a lot of its own mistakes. That irritated some Congressional Republicans who said there was no comparison between how Russian and U.S. politicians behaved.

Putin, in his 17th year of dominating the Russian political landscape, is accused by some Kremlin critics of ordering the killing of opponents. Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly rejected those allegations as politically-motivated and false.

Trump, who has said he wants to try to mend battered U.S.-Russia ties and hopes he can get along with Putin, was asked a question about some of those allegations by Fox Business before he won the White House.

In January last year, after a British judge ruled that Putin had “probably” authorized the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, Trump said he saw no evidence the Russian president was guilty.

“First of all, he says he didn’t do it. Many people say it wasn’t him. So who knows who did it?” Trump said.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

U.S. voters want leader to end advantage of rich and powerful

Hundreds of Temple University students wait in an hour-long line to vote during the U.S. presidential election in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

By Chris Kahn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans who had cast their votes for the next president early on Tuesday appeared to be worried about the direction of the country, and were looking for a “strong leader who can take the country back from the rich and powerful,” according to an early reading from the Reuters/Ipsos national Election Day poll.

The poll of more than 10,000 people who have already cast their ballots in the presidential election showed a majority of voters are worried about their ability to get ahead and have little confidence in political parties or the media to improve their situation. A majority also feel that the economy is rigged to mostly help the wealthy.

The poll, which will be updated as additional responses are tallied and votes are counted throughout Tuesday, found:

– 75 percent agree that “America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.”

– 72 percent agree “the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful.”

– 68 percent agree that “traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me.”

– 76 percent believe “the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth.”

– 57 percent feel that “more and more, I don’t identify with what America has become.”

– 54 percent feel “it is increasingly hard for someone like me to get ahead in America.”

The Reuters/Ipsos online opinion poll was conducted on Election Day in English in all 50 states. It includes 10,604 Americans who have already cast their vote in the presidential election and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 1 percentage point.

The poll also includes a variety of questions about the presidential race, which candidate people supported, and why. Those results will be published later in the evening, after most of the votes have been counted and state races have been called.

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Grant McCool)

Is Haiti forgotten? Where is the media? They need our help!

Residents ask for food at the end of a food distribution after Hurricane Matthew in Saint Jean du Sud, Haiti,

By Kami Klein

A Picture. Hopefully for Haiti, it takes only one in this world of media, where the fight to grab the attention of the public shifts in seconds.  

Only a few weeks ago, as Hurricane Matthew made a direct hit on the poor country of Haiti, the news organizations were covering the devastation every hour and prayers were said around the world.  Now, there is an eerie silence in that same media for the Haitian people.

Over 90% of their homes are destroyed. All of their crops annihilated. Drinking water is slowly becoming poison.  There is no electricity and very little protection from the elements.  So many areas in Haiti are impossible to get to because of the damage.  Food is being airdropped but no one really knows the fate of these people shut off from medical help and the basic needs for life.  

Whether it is politically motivated or perhaps just the hunger for new stories to bring ratings in the media outlets, Haiti is already forgotten and the tragedy for these people  is only beginning.  

We will not forget the people of Haiti.

Thanks to Gary Heavin, founder and former CEO of the fitness chain Curves, producer and actor and a remarkable friend to this ministry, we are able to truly be of assistance. Gary has been on the ground and in the air helping Haiti.  He is one of the few that owns a cargo plane that can get to these remote places and has been tirelessly distributing the food and water filtration as well as solar flashlights and other necessities to these desperate people.  We KNOW that what we are sending is getting to those that really need it!   

We ask you to pray for Haiti and for those amazing people who are there in a great time of need!  We are also asking for your help!  It is through your donations that these emergency items for Haiti are possible. If you wish to help Haiti, please see the link below!   

 

Haiti Hurricane Relief

Russian editor’s fired over stories that irked officials

Man walks towards RBC media group office building in Moscow

By Maria Tsvetkova and Polina Devitt

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A former editor of a Russian media group described how he and colleagues were pushed out over reporting that angered officials, in the first public account of the taming of Russia’s last big news organization willing to take on the Kremlin.

In his first public comments since his dismissal along with two other top editors from RBC media group in May, Roman Badanin told Reuters that he and his colleagues were fired in the wake of a campaign of pressure on the group’s billionaire owner that came to a head after they published a story on the “Panama Papers” leaks.

Last week, RBC managers presented the replacement editors, recruited from state-owned news agency Tass, who told a tense meeting with staff that there would be limits on what and how they could report, according to someone who was present.

RBC’s owner Mikhail Prokhorov, a metals magnate who also owns the Brooklyn Nets U.S. basketball team, had previously shielded its journalists. The group’s news agency, newspaper and television station wrote stories about Putin’s friends and family, and other taboo subjects like the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.

But after the Panama Papers story in April, which was illustrated with a picture of Putin and alleged that a close childhood friend of the president’s had offshore accounts, the official pressure was turned up a notch.

“It was precisely after this, so I’m told, that the problems started,” said Badanin.

Days after the story appeared, masked law-enforcement officers raided the headquarters of Prokhorov’s holding company Onexim in what officials called a tax investigation.

A short while after, the head of a utility company owned by Onexim group was arrested on suspicion of fraud.

“Apparently the build-up of attacks on the owner became very powerful,” Badanin said. “Listen: searches, criminal cases against the management of the company, demonstrations under their windows. Everything at the same time.”

“PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE US”

Badanin said he had long been aware that officials were angry at RBC’s reporting: messages had been passed to its Kremlin reporters and other journalists. A nationalist group led by a pro-Kremlin member of parliament staged several protests in front of the group’s offices, accusing it of spreading pro-Western propaganda.

“Of course there are people in the Kremlin who don’t like us, that is nothing new,” said Badanin.

Under Putin’s 17-year rule, major television stations and newspapers have, one by one, come under the control of state firms or oligarchs loyal to the Kremlin, and their coverage has gone from combative to deferential.

However, RBC under Prokhorov’s ownership gained a reputation as the last big media company willing to write stories about the most sensitive issues. In the past two years it published articles on Putin’s daughter and the business interests of Kirill Shamalov, who Reuters reported last year is Putin’s son-in-law.

On May 13, the group announced that it was firing Badanin, the editor of its news agency, as well as group editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya, and the editor of its daily newspaper Maxim Solyus.

One of the aims of the sackings “was that the editorial policy would become more cautious”, Badanin said.

Badanin said he had learned from executives in the media group that officials had, on occasion, called people close to the group’s owners to ask to have some articles removed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied this: “Nobody, and they will confirm this, ever went to them (RBC) with a demand or a request to not publish anything, and certainly nothing was said to the owner. It is a gross exaggeration, an absolutely gross exaggeration.”

RBC declined to comment, as did Onexim, Prokhorov’s holding group.

By July 7, when RBC General Director Nikolai Molibog presented the new editors recruited from Tass, Elizaveta Golikova and Igor Trosnikov, many journalists had already handed in their notice and others were considering their positions.

Several journalists pressed the new bosses to say if there would be restrictions on what they could report to avoid angering the authorities.

“If someone thinks that you can (publish) whatever, just absolutely everything — that’s not the case,” Trosnikov said, according to a transcript of the staff meeting published by news site meduza.io and which was confirmed as authentic by the person present.

“I can’t say to you that there are no restrictions at all. They exist. If someone believes there aren’t any, they should write for themselves on Facebook.”

(Writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Peter Graff)

Beirut Citizens Feel Overshadowed By Paris Attacks

On November 12th, a day before the French attacks, two suicide bombers  killed 43 people and wounded 239 more in the Lebanese capital in an ISIS-propagated murder. On the night of Friday the 13th, in Paris, at least 129 people  were killed and over 350 wounded by at least seven ISIS-connected assailants at a stadium, concert hall and in restaurants.

The Beirut bombings were the worst since Beirut’s civil war ended in 1990.  The attack was also claimed by ISIS or the Islamic State and took place in a neighborhood that was a stronghold for Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar Assad.

The latest deadly attacks by ISIS on Paris are drawing millions of mourners from around the world, but some say it is overshadowing other ISIS attacks worthy of global attention.

“When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of their flag,” Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor, wrote on his blog.

“When my people died, they did not send the world into mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.”

Social media also reflected the unfairness that many were feeling on the coverage of these tragic events, with many wondering where the prayers and flags were for the Lebanese people.

Although, there was outrage among some people, others believed it was due to the ongoing conflict in areas around Lebanon and the rarity of such incidents in Paris that led to the one-sided flood of support.

“In Lebanon we experience war and its consequences more than French people do,” Lebanese journalist Doja Daoud told Al Jazeera. “This is a humanitarian thing, the same terrorism that kills Lebanese people, Iraqis and Syrians, killed the French.”

Special Report: Exposed – Beijing’s cover global radio network

Photo courtesy of Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

By Koh Gui Qing and John Shiffman

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In August, foreign ministers from 10 nations blasted China for building artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. As media around the world covered the diplomatic clash, a radio station that serves the most powerful city in America had a distinctive take on the news.

Located outside Washington, D.C., WCRW radio made no mention of China’s provocative island project. Instead, an analyst explained that tensions in the region were due to unnamed “external forces” trying “to insert themselves into this part of the world using false claims.”

Behind WCRW’s coverage is a fact that’s never broadcast: The Chinese government controls much of what airs on the station, which can be heard on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

WCRW is just one of a growing number of stations across the world through which Beijing is broadcasting China-friendly news and programming.

A Reuters investigation spanning four continents has identified at least 33 radio stations in 14 countries that are part of a global radio web structured in a way that obscures its majority shareholder: state-run China Radio International, or CRI.

Many of these stations primarily broadcast content created or supplied by CRI or by media companies it controls in the United States, Australia and Europe. Three Chinese expatriate businessmen, who are CRI’s local partners, run the companies and in some cases own a stake in the stations. The network reaches from Finland to Nepal to Australia, and from Philadelphia to San Francisco.

At WCRW, Beijing holds a direct financial interest in the Washington station’s broadcasts. Corporate records in the United States and China show a Beijing-based subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned radio broadcaster owns 60 percent of an American company that leases almost all of the station’s airtime.

China has a number of state-run media properties, such as the Xinhua news agency, that are well-known around the world. But American officials charged with monitoring foreign media ownership and propaganda said they were unaware of the Chinese-controlled radio operation inside the United States until contacted by Reuters. A half-dozen former senior U.S. officials said federal authorities should investigate whether the arrangement violates laws governing foreign media and agents in the United States.

 

“SERIOUS INQUIRY”

A U.S. law enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibits foreign governments or their representatives from holding a radio license for a U.S. broadcast station. Under the Communications Act, foreign individuals, governments and corporations are permitted to hold up to 20 percent ownership directly in a station and up to 25 percent in the U.S. parent corporation of a station.

CRI itself doesn’t hold ownership stakes in U.S. stations, but it does have a majority share via a subsidiary in the company that leases WCRW in Washington and a Philadelphia station with a similarly high-powered signal.

Said former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt: “If there were allegations made about de facto Chinese government ownership of radio stations, then I’m sure the FCC would investigate.”

U.S. law also requires anyone inside the United States seeking to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government or group to register with the Department of Justice. Public records show that CRI’s U.S. Chinese-American business partner and his companies haven’t registered as foreign agents under the law, called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

“I would make a serious inquiry under FARA into a company rebroadcasting Chinese government propaganda inside the United States without revealing that it is acting on behalf of, or it’s owned or controlled by China,” said D.E. “Ed” Wilson Jr., a former senior White House and Treasury Department official.

CRI headquarters in Beijing and the Chinese embassy in Washington declined to make officials available for interviews or to comment on the findings of this article.

Justice Department national security spokesman Marc Raimondi and FCC spokesman Neil Grace declined to comment.

Other officials at the FCC said the agency receives so many license applications that it only launches a probe if it receives a complaint. People familiar with the matter said no such complaint has been lodged with the FCC about the CRI-backed network in the United States.

 

BUILDING “SOFT POWER”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has chafed at a world order he sees as dominated by the United States and its allies, is aware that China struggles to project its views in the international arena.

“We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China’s message to the world,” Xi said in a policy address in November last year, according to Xinhua.

CRI head Wang Gengnian has described Beijing’s messaging effort as the “borrowed boat” strategy – using existing media outlets in foreign nations to carry Chinese propaganda.

The 33 radio stations backed by CRI broadcast in English, Chinese or local languages, offering a mix of news, music and cultural programs. Newscasts are peppered with stories highlighting China’s development, such as its space program, and its contribution to humanitarian causes, including earthquake relief in Nepal.

“We are not the evil empire that some Western media portray us to be,” said a person close to the Communist Party leadership in Beijing who is familiar with the CRI network. “Western media reports about China are too negative. We just want to improve our international image. It’s self-protection.”

In some ways, the CRI-backed radio stations fulfill a similar advocacy role to that of the U.S.-run Voice of America. But there is a fundamental difference: VOA openly publishes the fact that it receives U.S. government funding. CRI is using front companies that cloak its role.

A few of the programs broadcast in the United States cite reports from CRI, but most don’t. One program, The Beijing Hour, says it is “brought to you by China Radio International.”

Some shows are slick, others lack polish. While many segments are indistinguishable from mainstream American radio shows, some include announcers speaking English with noticeable Chinese accents.

The production values vary because the broadcasts are appealing to three distinct audiences: first-generation Chinese immigrants with limited English skills; second-generation Chinese curious about their ancestral homeland; and non-Chinese listeners whom Beijing hopes to influence.

One thing the programs have in common: They generally ignore criticism of China and steer clear of anything that casts Beijing in a negative light.

A top-of-the-hour morning newscast on Oct. 15, broadcast in Washington and other U.S. cities, was identified only as “City News.” It reported that U.S. officials were concerned about cyber attacks, including one in which the personal information of about 20 million American government workers was allegedly stolen. The broadcast left out a key element: It has been widely reported that U.S. officials believe China was behind that hack.

Last year, as thousands of protesters demanding free elections paralyzed Hong Kong for weeks, the news on CRI-backed stations in the United States presented China’s point of view. A report the day after the protests ended did not explain why residents were on the streets and carried no comments from protest leaders. The demonstrations, a report said, had “failed without the support of the people in Hong Kong.”

Many of these stations do not run ads and so do not appear to be commercially motivated.

 

THREE SURROGATES

Around the world, corporate records show, CRI’s surrogates use the same business structure. The three Chinese businessmen in partnership with Beijing have each created a domestic media company that is 60 percent owned by a Beijing-based group called Guoguang Century Media Consultancy. Guoguang, in turn, is wholly owned by a subsidiary of CRI, according to Chinese company filings.

The three companies span the globe:

• In Europe, GBTimes of Tampere, Finland, has an ownership stake in or provides content to at least nine stations, according to interviews and an examination of company filings.

• In Asia-Pacific, Global CAMG Media Group of Melbourne, Australia, has an ownership stake in or supplies programming to at least eight stations, according to corporate records.

• And in North America, G&E Studio Inc, near Los Angeles, California, broadcasts content nearly full time on at least 15 U.S. stations. A station in Vancouver also broadcasts G&E content. In addition to distributing CRI programming, G&E produces and distributes original Beijing-friendly shows from its California studios.

In a Sept. 16 interview at his offices near Los Angeles, G&E president and CEO James Su confirmed that CRI subsidiary Guoguang Century Media holds a majority stake in his company and that he has a contract with the Chinese broadcaster. He said that a non-disclosure agreement bars him from divulging details.

Su said he complies with U.S. laws. G&E doesn’t own stations, but rather leases the airtime on them. “It’s like a management company that manages a condominium,” he said.

Su added that he is a businessman, not an agent for China. “Our U.S. audience and our U.S. public has the choice,” Su said. “They can choose to listen or not listen. I think this is an American value.”

GBTimes CEO Zhao Yinong, who spearheads the European arm of the expatriate radio operation, confirmed that he receives several million euros a year from CRI. In an interview in Beijing, Zhao said he was “not interested in creating a false China” and he had “nothing to hide.”

Tommy Jiang, the head of CAMG, the Australian-based company that owns and operates stations in the Asia-Pacific region, declined to comment.

 

BORN IN A CAVE

CRI has grown remarkably since its founding in 1941. According to its English-language website, its first broadcast was aired from a cave, and the news reader had to frighten away wolves with a flashlight. Today, CRI says it broadcasts worldwide in more than 60 languages and Chinese dialects.

CRI content is carefully scripted, with the treatment of sensitive topics such as the banned Falun Gong spiritual group adhering strictly to the government line. Those restrictions might make China’s soft-power push an uphill battle with audiences in places like Houston, Rome or Auckland.

But CRI does have something to offer station owners. Since 2010, CRI’s broadcast partner in the United States has struck deals that bailed out struggling community radio stations, either by purchasing them outright or paying tens of thousands of dollars a month to lease virtually all their airtime. The latter is known as “time-brokering” and is the method G&E used to take to the air in Washington.

The 195-foot towers broadcasting Beijing’s agenda throughout the Washington region are located in suburban Loudoun County, Virginia, near Dulles International Airport. They pump out a 50,000-watt signal, the maximum for an AM station in the United States.

The towers went live in 2011. In the previous five decades, before the Chinese got involved, the station was known as WAGE, and it used smaller equipment and broadcast mostly local news and talk.

At just 5,000 watts, the signal didn’t carry far. This didn’t matter much until the 1990s, when Loudoun County boomed into a bedroom community for Washington. Commuters would lose the signal halfway to the capital.

In 2005, an American company called Potomac Radio LLC purchased the station and added some nationally syndicated programming. Potomac Radio president Alan Pendleton said his company had a history of leasing time to ethnic programmers, including an hour a day to CRI on another station. Revenue at WAGE continued to fall, however, and in 2009, it went off the air.

“It was a painful, painful experience,” said Pendleton. “We were losing millions of dollars a year down the drain.”

 

LOUDOUN COUNTY’S “LAST HOPE”

Saying they hoped to resurrect the station, other Potomac Radio executives asked Loudoun County in 2009 for permission to erect three broadcast towers on land owned by a county utility, records show. The new towers would boost the station’s signal tenfold to 50,000 watts, reaching into Washington.

In their application, Potomac Radio executives argued that the new towers offered the “last hope to retain Loudoun County’s only” radio station. The paperwork made no mention of plans to lease airtime to Su and CRI.

Potomac Radio also invoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a day when the station provided “critical information to county businesses and parents” as mobile phone service became overloaded. The new towers would contribute to public safety, proponents said.

The county Board of Supervisors approved the towers. In the days before the station came back on air in April 2011, Potomac Radio sought FCC permission to change the name to WCRW.

Asked about the initials, Pendleton confirmed that they stand for China Radio Washington. The change was his idea, not CRI’s, he said.

Loudoun County officials were surprised when the amped-up station returned as WCRW and began broadcasting G&E and CRI content about China.

“It was all very deceptive,” said Kelly Burk, a county supervisor at the time. “They presented it as all about being about local radio, and never let on what they were really up to.”

Potomac Radio’s Pendleton said there was no deception. His company was approached by CRI several months after the county approved the towers, he said.

Pendleton said he didn’t know that G&E was 60 percent owned by a subsidiary of the Chinese government until Reuters informed him. But the arrangement complies with FCC law, he said, because G&E leases the airwaves instead of owning the station.

In any event, he said, CRI is open about its goals: to present a window into Chinese culture and offer Chinese points of view on international affairs.

“If you listen to other state-sponsored broadcasters,” especially Russia’s, “they’re really insidious,” Pendleton said. “CRI’s not like that at all.”

Pendleton said he has no input in WCRW content: He simply rebroadcasts whatever programs arrive from CRI’s man in America, G&E founder James Su.

 

CHINA’S “PROXY”

James Yantao Su was born in Shanghai in 1970, the year China launched its first satellite. He moved to the United States in 1989, he said, ultimately settling in West Covina, a suburb of Los Angeles, and became a U.S. citizen.

By the early 2000s, Su was a moderately successful media entrepreneur. But after his 2009 deal to create G&E, in which the Chinese state-owned subsidiary has a majority stake, his fortunes rose.

Today, the 44-year-old owns or co-owns real estate and radio stations worth more than $15 million, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. corporate, property, tax and FCC records. His projects include English and Chinese-language stations, a magazine, a newspaper, four apartment buildings, condos at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, a film festival and a charity that last year donated $230,000 to an orphanage in China.

Two of his primary companies are G&E Studio and EDI Media Inc. G&E dedicated a page on its website to showcase CRI as a “close” partner, but it recently deleted the page after Reuters made inquiries. EDI’s site says it has become “China’s outward media and advertising proxy” in the United States.

In 2013, the Chinese government presented Su with a special contribution award at a media event for Chinese broadcasters.

Other ties are not as visible: The key disclosure that G&E is 60 percent owned by Guoguang Century – the Beijing firm that’s 100 percent owned by CRI – is contained in a footnote in a lengthy FCC filing made on behalf of another Su company, Golden City Broadcast, LLC.

Su declined to discuss his business career in detail. An early highlight, though, was a speech he gave in 2003, when he was in his early thirties.

Covered by China’s state-run media, the speech laid out Su’s vision for a business that could be profitable and also help China project its message in the United States. The business would need to be structured to comply with U.S. ownership laws and would “endorse China’s ideology,” Su was quoted as saying.

In the same speech, he spoke of his fellow expats’ affinity for China. “The sense of belonging to China among countrymen residing abroad and their endorsement of China’s current policies grow with each day,” Su said, according to Xinhua.

In 2008, Su gave an address in which he criticized U.S. media for focusing their China coverage on issues such as human rights.

The media were misleading “the American masses’ objective understanding of China, even engendering hostile emotions,” Su said, according to a China National Radio report.

It was in 2009 that Su’s vision really began to take shape. That year, records show, Su created G&E Studio.

 

“UNFILTERED REAL NEWS”

G&E now broadcasts in English and Chinese on at least 15 U.S. stations, including Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, Honolulu and Portland, Oregon.

The content is largely the same on each station, produced either by CRI from Beijing or by G&E from California.

A typical hour on most stations begins with a short newscast that can toggle between China news and stories about violent crimes in the United States. Besides the overtly political coverage, topics range from global currency fluctuations and Chinese trade missions to celebrity wardrobe analysis and modern parenting challenges.

While Su owns a minority share of G&E, he has structured his radio station holdings in various ways. According to the most recent FCC records, he is the majority owner of at least six stations, such as the one in Atlanta, which he purchased for $2.1 million in 2013.

In other cases he leases airtime. In Washington, for instance, he leases virtually all the time on WCRW for more than $720,000 a year through G&E. A Philadelphia station is leased under a similar arrangement for at least $600,000 a year.

A spokeswoman for Su said Reuters’ description of the extent of his network is “generally correct.”

Su declined to describe how he makes money when most of the U.S. stations air virtually no commercials. He also declined to say how he got the money to finance his radio leases and acquisitions.

His stations, Su said, offer the American public an alternative viewpoint on Chinese culture and politics. He has “no way to control” what CRI broadcasts on the stations, he said, nor is he part of any plan to spread Chinese propaganda.

“We are only telling the unfiltered real news to our audience,” he said.

On Oct. 29, WCRW carried a program called “The Hourly News.” Among the top stories: Senior Chinese and U.S. naval commanders planned to speak by video after a U.S. Navy ship passed close by China’s new artificial islands in the South China Sea.

Washington and its allies see the island-building program as a ploy to grab control of strategic sea lanes, and the Navy sail-by was meant to counter China’s territorial claims.

WCRW omitted that side of the story.

The admirals are holding the talks, the announcer said, “amid the tension the U.S. created this week.”

 

(Edited by Bill Tarrant and Peter Hirschberg. Reported by Koh Gui Qing in Beijing and John Shiffman in Washington and Los Angeles. Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim and Joseph Campbell in Beijing, Ritsuko Ando in Tokyo, Gopal Sharma and Ross Adkin in Kathmandu, Mirwais Harooni in Kabul, Joyce Lee in Seoul, Eveline Danubrata and Arzia Tivany Wargadiredja in Jakarta, Mohammed Shihar in Colombo, Khettiya Jittapong and Pairat Temphairojana in Bangkok, Terrence Edwards in Ulan Bator, Theodora D’cruz in Singapore, Diane Chan in Hong Kong, Jane Wardell and Ian Chua in Sydney, Balazs Koranyi and Harro Ten Wolde in Frankfurt, Jussi Rosendahl in Helsinki, Sara Ledwith in London, Julia Fioretti in Brussels, Can Sezer in Istanbul, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Kole Casule in Skopje, Renee Maltezou in Athens, Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi, Radu-Sorin Marinas in Bucharest, Geert De Clercq in Paris, Marton Dunai in Budapest, Ed Cropley in Johannesburg, Selam Gebrekidan in New York, Anna Driver in Houston, Renee Dudley in Boston, Brian Grow in Atlanta, David Storey in Washington and Euan Rocha in Toronto.)

BOOM! There It Is! – The Journey Continues

It had not even been a year yet since I was saved and God was doing quick work!  I had spent my summer devoted to finding the path and following the calling that God was bringing into my life.  And now it was my senior year of high school.   I knew that God had called me to Christian television and media.  I had no idea what that was going to look like. My mind was incredibly busy with trying to set things up, finding the next step.  God hadn’t given me particular answers quite yet so I was going to try to fill the empty holes with answers the best way I knew how.

I knew that God had called me to be a part of revolutionizing Christian television and Christian media for this generation.  But there were certain things I didn’t know.  I didn’t know the logistics of how it was that this was going to come about.  I decided I was going to go to a Christian college and get my pastoral license and I would take a lot of classes in media and television as well.  That seemed to me to be the most logical thing I could possibly do. Continue reading

Journey to Morningside Part 2 – And The Word is Media

There I was, the summer before my senior year in High school.  I had only been saved for a few months and I was so on fire that I was joining every church camp I could either attend or be a part of as a member of the camping staff.  During my time as a counselor for the youth camp, I had been spending some private with Jesus in my cabin just asking God for guidance on a couple of matters that were heavy on my heart.  The first concerned my infatuation with an awesome girl that the Lord basically told me not to pursue which was so confusing to me because I thought she would make a great wife!  The second issue on my heart was regarding a passion of mine I hadn’t told my Mom or Dad or even closest friends.  Nobody knew about the calling I kept feeling in my heart.  The passion that I felt was ignited inside of me. Continue reading

Christian Radio Station To Bring Hope To Communist Nation

For years in the country of Albania, the communist government once exerted such control over the publications and broadcasting that you could not buy a dictionary with God in it.

Now, the country is undergoing a revolution of hope as a Christian radio station is airing programming in the Albanian’s native language aimed at bringing the good news to the lost.

Radio 7 has been broadcasting Christian material to the country since 2002 but had been hampered by the fact their programs were translations of North American programs that were aimed at believers in the United States and Canada.

The head of Radio 7 contacted an American ministry called The Tide which works to create locally produced Gospel shows around the world.  The group helped launch radio ministries in countries such as Nigeria, Nepal and India.  They knew they could bring the kind of help to Radio 7 that would impact Albania.

“Like all of our programming, The Tide Albanian-language program, which also reaches into neighboring Kosovo, is produced on-site, using indigenous speakers who tell people about Jesus in the language they were born to speak,” said The Tide Director Don Shenk. “But our ministry in Albania also goes beyond airtime, and our ministry leaders invest into the lives of those to whom they minister, visiting with them, giving them radios so they can listen to the program, praying with them and encouraging them in their faith.”

The ministry of Radio 7 and The Tide has produced noticeable results in just a few short months with letters from those who said they were atheists or Muslims who have now accepted Christ as Lord.

Albania’s population today is less than one percent Christian.