Newcomer Ignites Chinese Newspaper War in San Francisco

News Feature

By Pueng Vongs, Pacific News Service

A respected Hong Kong daily is giving residents of one of the country's most historic Chinese communities another forum to navigate explosive debates over homeland politics and immigrant life the United States. 

SAN FRANCISCO-May 21, 2004-On newsstands in San Francisco's old and new Chinatowns, the battle is heating up for the city's coveted Chinese-language readership.

Newcomer Ming Pao Daily News, widely known as Hong Kong's New York Times, threw down the gauntlet with its 25-cent selling price -- half that of its main competitors. Ming Pao's entry will surely fire up a previously complacent market and boost coverage for a community that is lately wielding more political power. But it is still too early to tell if the paper's stellar reputation will be enough to shake the established reading habits of the country's most historic Chinese community, a population that makes up nearly one quarter of the city.

Ming Pao has rolled out a modest print run of 20,000 in San Francisco.

Sing Tao Daily, with a long history in the city, was ready, having recently bulked up by buying competitor The Chinese Times. It also launched a citywide ad campaign, plastering its billboards on the back of municipal buses.

More than four decades old, the Ming Pao was created by kung fu author Louis Cha, whose epics are well known in the Chinese world. His editorials critical of Beijing garnered a wide following. But in 1995, the paper was sold to Malaysian billionaire Tiong Kiew Chiong who's on this year's Forbes list of the world's richest people. Tiong toned down the paper's harsh stance toward China, and today the Ming Pao is Hong Kong's third top-selling daily among more than a dozen. Its circulation is approximately 100,000.

The newspaper's staunch commitment to journalistic standards sets it apart from Hong Kong's gossip-rich and politically biased periodicals, making the Ming Pao a favorite among the region's intellectuals.

"It does not carry the political or ideological baggage of some of the other Chinese papers," says L. Ling-chi Wang, a professor with the ethnic studies department at the University of California at Berkeley.

For example, in the explosive Taiwan-China reunification debate, he says, "Ming Pao offers more judicious and credible coverage of both Mainland and Taiwan news, and best of all, it is not afraid to go after the wrongs of both sides."

The Taiwan-based World Journal, on the other hand, is reputed to be unfriendly to the People's Republic of China. "While the paper has expressed support for eventual unification," says Wang, "it remains strongly anti-China and quite timid in criticizing Taiwan's current Chen Shui-bian government and its propaganda."

World Journal, distributed in the United States since 1976, however, has a loyal following in the large population of Taiwanese in the San Francisco Bay Area, touting a circulation of 68,000.

Ming Pao, not widely circulated in Taiwan, may have difficulty winning over Taiwanese readers. It seems to be gunning for the readership of Hong Kong-based rival Sing Tao Daily, a 30-year-old standby for generations of immigrants from Hong Kong and the Mainland.

Sing Tao provides big servings of news on Chinese movie stars and celebrity gossip. How Ming Pao's contained journalistic style will appeal to Sing Tao's readers remains to be seen. Sing Tao boasts a circulation of 50,000 in the Bay Area.

All three papers are also competing for the mother lode of new readership consisting of immigrants from Mainland China. Ming Pao hopes to lure this group with daily half-page sections dedicated to each of the major Chinese provinces -- Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian and Guangdong.

Sing Tao San Francisco editor Joseph Leung plays down the rivalry, saying his paper has not seen a drop-off in sales. "Ming Pao has a long history in Hong Kong, but in the Bay Area they'll need some time to grow."

Paul Tsang, Ming Pao's San Francisco editor, admits his reporters have their work cut out for them. "It's a tough market to get into. Sing Tao and World Journal are well established. But we have confidence," he says.

Tsang concedes Ming Pao has had greater success in the burgeoning Chinese immigrant populations in Vancouver and Toronto, whose reading habits are still in flux. He says Ming Pao is the top Chinese-language daily in Toronto. But after seven years in New York, where the older population has developed its reading choices, Ming Pao puts its circulation at approximately 33,000, only about half that of the Sing Tao and World Journal.

To win over new readers in San Francisco, Ming Pao is bucking ethnic media industry trends by prominently positioning on the front page stories written daily by its local reporting staff, alongside international and domestic news from its national and home offices.

Stories about the city's new Chinese American female police chief run alongside reports on the 9/11 commission and Taiwan's presidential inauguration. Ming Pao also publishes a glossy weekly magazine with such features as the Bay Area's homegrown Miss Hong Kong and a Chinese immigrant who owns some 20 McDonald's franchises.

Sing Tao Daily has also recently increased its community coverage and begun a new weekly magazine covering Chinese American politics.

So far the winner of the competition is the community, says David Lee, of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. "It brings another set of eyes and analysis to civic affairs," he says.

The timing is also good. These days the community is buzzing with a new sense of political empowerment, credited as the swing vote in Mayor Gavin Newsom's victory last winter.

At the Ng Hing Kee bookstore and newsstand in Chinatown, an elderly gentleman from Mainland China -- a San Francisco resident for the past five years -- walked past the Ming Pao rack and grabbed a Sing Tao as a reflex. He said he had never heard of Ming Pao and had no interest in it.

Vince Chung, 34, originally from Hong Kong but a local resident for 17 years, picked up a copy each of Sing Tao and Ming Pao. He said he likes to read both because each paper has different points of view. "Ming Pao is more liberal. It is more lenient toward the democracy movement in Hong Kong." He says while he's loyal to Sing Tao, "it's good to see what the other side thinks."

PNS contributor Pueng Vongs (pvongs@pacificnews.org) is an editor for NCM, an association of more than 600 print, broadcast and online ethnic media organizations and a PNS project.