Why Americans Don't Understand China: Armstrong Williams Interviews Jekielek about the Epoch Times

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] strong [Music] Yan ye kellic is the senior editor of the epoch times you know Epoch times is a staple of the world you know it's so it's so often when I travel the globe people say do you read the epoch times or someone will send me articles from Epoch times so I had a opportunity to sit and get to know Yan I said man we've got to sit down cuz people really need to understand the epoch times welcome to uh our national broadcast and thank you so much for joining us well thanks so much Armstrong fantastic to be here so so let me get this straight um you have 35 Publications around the world you're not allowed in mainstream China uh you have the intd which the which is the nank dynasty um uh they consider you to be a right-wing organization you oppose communist China you also believe that the Chinese have been manipulated and spreading propaganda in the United States for a long time and their ultimate goal uh is to use this propaganda Warfare to overtake America and you fight against that uh how long has the Epoch time has been around well since 2000 it was actually founded by Chinese Americans it's kind of an amazing uh story of the kind of the American dream happening actually I I uh so my parents came from communist Poland they're also kind of a story of let's say the North American Dream but Epoch uh well our founder actually came from uh he was in the student movement in ' 89 you know people have heard about the tanman Square massacre he wasn't actually there but this was a movement across the entire country and a lot of them that kind of made it and weren't too much on the government's radar and could got scholarships he ended up going to Georgia Tech uh kind of a brilliant theoretical physicist and he ended up you know and in 99 when the Chinese regime kind of found its new Target it wasn't the Democracy uh dissidents or activists it was the spiritual group Fallen gong practitioners of that um in order to justify it they basically created you know what they always do which is oodles and oodles of hate propaganda basically attempting to demonize these people we see these kind of tactics all over the place often um and John being in America in Atlanta he thought hey I can actually do something now I'm in America there's a First Amendment here and we can tell the truth about what's happening that we as Americans don't understand about how the Chinese operate a great many things um I I think one of the most important thing it's very very difficult for people that grow up in a free Society or a mostly free Society to actually understand what it's like to live under a totalitarian regime I'll give you an example okay in my family we had a rule I grew up I I was I kind of upon I came out upon arrival I grew up in Canada okay and um in my family the rule was you can say nothing that we talk about in the family outside the family and parents were tough to deal with you know so I I had all this you know stuff I wanted to discuss with my friends but I knew it would be treason to to say anything and I only realized 20 years maybe 30 years later really why this was the rule because in a totalitarian Society everybody is incentivized to spy and report on everybody else and you assume that to be the default unless there's people that you have deep that you've developed deep trust with and even then you know when going back to Poland when they revealed the all the dossier that were held after ' 89 after democracy came to Poland and people got to see you know who it was that was actually spying on them it was wives spying on husbands it was priests reporting confessions it was everything right and that's a mind job imagine you know if I in our society if I think everybody's a potential spy on me how how would we behave differently that's just one thing but I think it's a very important one explain to us the structure of epoch times take us inside the organization okay um well let's start let me do a couple of data points first of all our uh truth and tradition is our tagline um uh I think in in Wikipedia one of the few things that's actually true about us it says political orientation anti-communist we don't expressly say that but I think it would be fair right we see that as a bad system um how in terms of structure um we developed quite every office has a lot of Independence in how it functions okay around the central editorial Vision where truth and tradition would be kind of the simplest approximation of that um but based in New York we're we're based in New York City and you have offices in uh Washington DC correct you have them in Texas correct you have them throughout California yep uh Northern LA and uh so Orange County LA and also uh uh the Bay Area and you also have the new tank dasty intd the television event so so NTD is our sister TV network and we've kind of uh they let me just mention that NTD started with a similar Mission Epoch times started in Chinese language to tell the truth to Chinese people in America who were being propagandized by Chinese media in America okay and then it changed when they realized my goodness all these American Media are just taking these Chinese Comm Communist Party talking points and regurgitating them right so we we we have to do something in English I mean this is these were the very early years and then it kind of grew into something much bigger than that we want to talk about what that grew into when we come back on this edition of Armstrong Williams Show the senior editor of the epoch times is our guest we'll be back Yan y Kell is our guest he's the epoch times senior editor what have you've expanded to and what is your main goal and why is it that so many people are fascinated and why is it that the mainstream media does everything it can to discredit you as a conspiratorial um right leaning media Empire we live in really crazy times Armstrong I if I I could not have predicted that just doing something really simple which is what we do which is focus on Truth telling you know how they say you know oh that didn't age well or that aged well talking about news stories and so forth our content that we do both in video and and written ages incredibly well and the secret is actually the simplest thing ever it's just simply try to seek the truth that's our highest that's our highest goal and and report it fairly and honestly to people so they can kind of figure out what's going on in the worlds make up their own minds about it you what is fascinating has been your coverage on the Israel Hamas War okay and how you've even challenged platforms like Tik Tok and while people may say it's pro-israeli pro- Jew you say no I we just we have reporters with have people on the ground we report the truth and the facts talk about that coverage and how you've come to your own conclusions about what the real situation is in the Middle East this is this is a really difficult problem uh to well let me put it this way no one wants war no one wants people dying Palestinian Israeli doesn't matter we don't we don't want that but it's like I I find there's almost every issue we try to cover right there's there's this kind of moral impr premature that's thrown into it when you cover it as we do I think honestly people will assume well you're on one side or another right how do we cover it we we do our best to try to report what's happening there with the best of our sources we actually have an Israeli Edition it's it's different than uh it's actually a monthly magazine over there uh because every area kind of developed on its own so we have a lot of very good uh on the ground information coming in um and I mean I I don't know what to tell you we report on it I I for for American thought leaders for my show I did an interview for example with Sarah Idan right Sarah Idan was Miss Iraq uh Universe um Miss Universe Iraq and she some years ago took a selfie with Miss Israel and as a result of that her family actually had to flee Iraq and it's just anyway it's F it's a fascinating reality why would that be right we we're trying to kind of create context for people to understand that's the that's the reason I mentioned this right and Sarah of course has a lot of thoughts about this particular conflict and what's going on why do you think there's such solidarity with wealthy affluent a lot of young people with Hamas and pal and the Palestinians I think fundamentally I think people well with sort of with older I think a lot of people are very ill-informed and number two I think when it comes to younger people there are incredibly powerful tools of influence at play I mean you know when you look at for example the Twitter files Revelations or the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit a lot of people will not be familiar with these but basically these are disclosures of showing us how um powerful entities including the government nonprofits work with social media to censor certain types of content and push other kinds of content okay so we that's that's in America now we have for example Tik Tok you mentioned that earlier right Tik Tok is and I actually do talk about this kind of at length is there's I could I could talk about it for an hour how Tik Tok is related to the Chinese Communist party and the Chinese regime but basically the people at Tik Tok are bound by Chinese law to follow the regime's guidance okay so there's the Espionage side that's possible and there's also the manipul manipulation side that's possible and you can see in terms of let's call it pramas content on Tik Tok is orders of magnitude greater than what you would call you know pro-israel content okay now why why is that right and and it's and these tools right can shape and there's i' I've done multiple multiple shows with people who have have Dem are demonstrating like Dr Robert Epstein how easy easy it is to influence people's decisions using these social media and even Technologies like Google what what if your um people because you also have uh in tacal in China what did we miss on the Wuhan lab in covid-19 this it's it's a it's a sad story okay because in April of 2020 we did a documentary and this is you know just a few months after that we we knew the pandemic had began which I mean the the the documentary is very simple it's like looks like a duck walks like a duck it's probably a duck there's a lab that's doing exactly the kind of experimentation which would lead to exactly the kind of virus that came out which has never occurred in nature before it makes much more sense that it's from a lab than it just randomly happened you know six strikings six bolts of lightning to the head would be the the the natural version of that okay very unlikely that's my point so a lot of the problem was the ch Communist party line was this is natural and unfortunately you know Dr foui and the US uh institu many US institutions decided that they're going to follow that for their own particular intentions uh Senator Rand Paul has a incredibly thick book right now out explaining it's called deception explaining why that was okay but if people actually were truth seeking and were reporting truth seeking information it was absolutely not rocket science understand that the lab leak was the vastly more likely scenario and we'll never know for sure because the Smoking Gun evidence has been destroyed of course right in communist China so but you know I logic basic logic and inference dictates it's a lab leak of course of course it was Yan key y Kell is our guest he's The Epic Times senior editor I'm Ron Williams and we'll be back [Music] [Music] we're back with Yan kellic uh epic time senior editor let's talk about gender driven journalism in America in the world today a shocking development in a way because you know in order to have a free Society this is what I've realized it's absolutely critical to have a free and fair press and for whatever reason and I've explored this extensively and I could we could talk about that if you want but a great many media including some of the largest media in our country have decided to follow a different School of Journalism which some people would call it agenda driven and some people just call it activist I actually think the official term for it is activist journalist ISM and over the past certainly decade there's been a huge shift in what's acceptable in journalism in many cases these especially younger Jour and they're taught this by the way in places like Columbia journalism School I've looked at the curriculum right that there's a certain view of the world that people are supposed to believe and all our journalism is going to cater to that if there's something that doesn't cater to that is that there's a reality that's reported that doesn't cater to that view we yeah if we have to report on it we put it on page 30 or something like that right or we or we don't talk about it at all but we push the stuff that is the correct view and what is the price for this When the Smoke Clears I I mean I hope it's not a free Society the C the the loss of a free Society I mean I think it's that grave if we don't fix this you know you know eoch times is so massive how are you able to gain such massive distribution such a massive subscription base so quickly you know I I I'm going to keep going back to this um it's been tough because as we kept growing well you gave it away in the beginning we we gave it away at the beginning but we realized that you know we were trying we're we're experimental we were trying all sorts of different business models right how's this going to work but it turned out that people are willing to pay for news that they understand is truth seeking that that is I mean I I keep I keep beating this drum but I actually think that's the main reason right 1.5 million Americans bit more now I think are deeply committed to knowing what's going on in the world and having a Fair View and that's why we've been growing I mean that I I don't have a better I don't have a better explanation there's sorts you know there you remember something called Russia gate right right now most people understand that Donald Trump was not a Russian agent I mean the whole concept was Preposterous on its face at the beginning but there's some portion of the population that even to this day because they were propagandized by media who wanted to believe this or were doing it disingenuously that he's some sort of Russian asset it's crazy right of course we reported honestly on this on the information that was available from the beginning that's what I mean by aged well but people remember that and now we have a lot of people that come to us because they they oh you guys reported on this honestly back then and then take your issue but how does the Epoch time instill that discipline that Integrity that fairness with thousands throughout thousands of employees around the world it's very difficult um very good uh uh uh hiring practices that involve a a lot lot of kind of insight into what people really believe and how they want to be but there's but there is another there's kind of a silver lining in a way because there's a lot of Truth seeking people out there and including journalists and they were looking for a home they realized oh I can't work for I'm not going to name specific names but I can't work for this media anymore and we we end up getting them like for example our our uh assistant DC bureau chief here in DC is from CNN he worked there for 20 years did amazing work but now he's with us so so what is your ambition for the future with with with Epoch times because obviously uh when you talk about those numbers 1.5 million subscription that can match the New York Times or any other major daily in the world they just many of just don't have those kind of numbers they can't sustain it yeah I think I I mean by our estimates in terms of uh paid subscribers we the number four newspaper in America right now and some people say well it's not audited well I'm not I don't I don't trust the Auditors frankly you know what what do you think from your coverage uh of the election uh and how the election is being covered the Biden White House your coverage in the epoch times is very unique you always bring in a perspective or a source that you say you know I have not read that before I've not heard that we we we a lot of the this type of environment where this act what happens is right as we've shifted to activist journalism there's a reaction to that and there's it's almost like you feel like you have to be an activist in the other direction and I know I I have that feeling too sometimes when you're being kind of uh when all this material is being thrown at you that you know it just kind of doesn't make a ton of sense you have to have a ton of discipline to try to provide an honest picture and this is this is tough with Israel Hamas all these with Ukraine Russia Ukraine war there's such there's such um in let me put it this way information War right which is you actually alluded to this early which is a central part of how the Chinese Communist party is attacking America this just one one one prong but a huge one has become kind of a dominant feature another word for it is propaganda and all that you exposed in Epoch times you got to give people hope you got to help them believe that everything that is is not lost there're still good and things worthwhile fighting for in the world oh no I I I totally agree with that and that's actually one reason a lot of people come to us we hear we we hear this from a lot of people that that you're you somehow approach a lot of these really difficult subjects in a kind of a positive way often you know when it's possible you know how can someone who are hearing about the epoch times for the first time subscribe and find out more about it the epoch times .c go to our website you can also go to read epoch.com you can if you're ready to subscribe read epoch.com you can do that immediately Yan y thank you so much for joining us that's a AAC time senior editor it's been a very wonderful insightful conversations one that I actually look forward to and thank you for joining us for this edition of the Armstrong William show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh oh all all [Music]