Sing Tao, Canada’s largest Chinese-language daily newspaper, stops print production in August

This article originally appeared on the Toronto Star.

By Dorcas Marfo Staff Reporter
Jeremy Nuttall Vancouver Bureau

After more than 40 years, Sing Tao is ending its Canadian print newspaper next month amid a move to digital.

Mon., July 25, 2022. time 2 min. read

Canada’s largest Chinese-language newspaper, Sing Tao Daily, announced Monday it will be stopping printing its daily newspaper after more than 40 years of operation.

Sing Tao Daily will continue with its journalism but end its Canadian print product on Aug. 28 as it pivots to a more digital model, management said, which will result in job losses.

“Upon ceasing publication of the daily newspaper at the end of August, a total of 83 staff will be affected across the country,” Calvin Wong, CEO of Sing Tao Media Group Canada, said in an email to the Star.

In a statement sent to staff earlier Monday, Wong said the decision was not made lightly and asked staff to “express gratitude” to those leaving the paper, jointly owned by Hong Kong-based Sing Tao News Corporation and Torstar Corporation, parent company of the Toronto Star.

Wong says the editorial policies will not change, but there will be a change in delivery.

“We have been an independent voice and we are not influenced too much by the left or the right. We focus on what is more important to the local Canadian Chinese community here,” Wong said.

Wong says Sing Tao will continue to publish its magazines eliteGen and Canadian City Post in Vancouver, with an addition of Sing Tao Headline — a traditional Chinese lifestyle magazine published every Saturday.

Started in Hong Kong but also published in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary, Sing Tao’s daily newspaper covered news from Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Taiwan. It also covered national and local news with reporters in Canada.

The union representing workers at the paper, which also represents Toronto Star staff, said the end of the daily newspaper is a blow to the Chinese community.

“Newspapers play a vital role in keeping Canadian society healthy. Professional, quality journalism is critical in supporting our democratic way of life,” Carleen Finch, president of Unifor Local 87-M (which represents 43 Sing Tao journalists) said in a written statement. “If we continue to lose Canadian newspapers, TV, and radio news programs, then our communities, economy and even our democracy are imperiled.”

Finch’s statement pointed to Ottawa’s Online News Act, now in committee on Parliament Hill, as a piece of legislation that could have helped Sing Tao in the face of the receding profitability of newspapers in Canada, but lamented the “stalled” legislation won’t come soon enough for the paper.

Victor Ho, the retired editor of the paper’s Vancouver edition, said the end of the print edition is sad, but in line with what has been happening to traditional print media. He said younger readers get the news from their phones rather than print editions of newspapers.

“The old economy no longer exists in the overseas Chinese society,” Ho said. “The new generation, I think 99 per cent doesn’t subscribe or even take a look at the print Sing Tao Daily.”