New York Chinese Newspaper Wars

Brainysmurf spots an article in the New York Times about the competition between Chinese language newspapers in New York City.

The meat of the article for media mavens:

"Just as in any good newspaper war, each of the Chinese newspapers is dismissed by the others. The World Journal is called an apologist for Taiwan, The China Press a mouthpiece for mainland China, Sing Tao Daily a tabloid-like scandal sheet, and Ming Pao a small nonthreat.

In each case, the truth is more complicated.

The World Journal, a division of the 50-year-old United Daily News Group of Taiwan, set foot in the United States in 1976 and now has papers in New York, San Francisco and nine other cities. With 25 reporters and 12 translators in the New York area, it is the reigning powerhouse in North America.

"We positioned ourselves as The New York Times for overseas Chinese people," said Tina Lee, the paper's assistant president.

Ms. Lee, 31, a graduate of Stanford University Law School, is the granddaughter of T. W. Wang, the founder of the United Daily News Group (and a friend of the Chiang family). She estimates that her paper has 90,000 readers in New York and 360,000 nationally.

Many readers, she says, are highly educated and high earning, and, despite the paper's origins in Taiwan, a majority are from the mainland. Like circulation claims made by the other newspapers, hers are hard to verify, since the newspapers do not submit their circulation to audits.

Sing Tao Daily, an offshoot of its Hong Kong namesake, is more open to a dash of sensation. It runs a daily page with pictures of revealingly dressed women and is more likely to run a photograph of the shark-mangled body of a man who tried to sneak into the United States. But it follows the news from Iraq as diligently as its competitors and has started a page with news from Wenzhou, a boomtown south of Shanghai that is the latest source of immigrants.

Rick Ho, the deputy general manager of Sing Tao, claims a circulation of 50,000 in New York and says the paper outsells The World Journal in Chinatown and Brooklyn. Still, as a thriving Hong Kong-based paper, Sing Tao would seem to have the most to fear from the arrival of The Oriental Daily News.

Ming Pao, which has been here six years and claims a circulation of 20,000, is also an offshoot of a Hong Kong newspaper, but it regards itself as more of an intellectual's broadsheet. Mr. Hu, the deputy editor in chief, says he is not worried about the more middlebrow Oriental Daily."

A buyout of one of these papers by a PRC media company can't be far off. Watch this space.