The Sing Tao Daily, or Sing Tao for short, is a Chinese languagenewspaper based in Toronto, Ontario. It is jointly owned by the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao News Corporation and the Canadian publishing conglomerate Torstar Corporation, parent company of the Toronto Star. Sing Taos connection to the Toronto Star was through Andrew V. Go, former Starvice president for business ventures. Go's father, Go Puan Seng, was the publisher of The Fookien Times, then the Philippines' largest Chinese-language newspaper which also published the Philippine edition of the Sing Tao, and was a family friend of then Sing Tao Group's Sally Aw. The Toronto edition is formally called the Canada Eastern Edition. A Canada Western Edition in Vancouver, British Columbia and an Alberta Edition in Calgary, Alberta have also been published since 1988. The paper, the only Chinese language newspaper publishing in 3 different Canadian cities, is published 7 days a week in the broadsheet format. News coverage includes national, provincial, and local news, international news, Hong Kong news, news from other parts of China, plus business, sports, lifestyle, entertainment, etc.
Supplements (magazines)
The Sing Tao publishes several weekly magazines. Unlike the situation in Hong Kong where the magazines are sold as separate publications, these are more properly called supplements that come free with the paper. The pages inside the magazines are also printed on newsprint instead of glossy paper. The free magazines that come with the Canada Eastern edition are:
Friday — Home Choice Magazine, a tabloid-sized home living/buying magazine with about 1/4 editorial content
Saturday — the Sing Tao Weekly, an entertainment-and-lifestyle magazine with mostly local content
Sunday — the Star Magazine, a tabloid-sized entertainment-and-news magazine with mostly Hong Kong content
From time to time, special supplements are also published.
Controversies
In 2009, the top editor of Toronto's Sing Tao Daily, Wilson Chan, was fired shortly after it was revealed that he drastically modified an original Toronto Star article on Tibet to remove criticisms of the Chinese government, before publishing the story in Sing Tao. The decision to remove Chan is said to have come from Torstar Corp, who owns a majority share in Sing Taos Canadian edition. The original story, "Chinese Canadians Conflicted on Tibet", which ran on April 13, 2008, was written by a reporter for the Toronto Star, an English-language newspaper also owned by Torstar Corporation. The relationship gives Sing Tao rights to translate and publish stories from the Star. Chan's edits to the Chinese language story, which were revealed by media outlets in 2009, included changing the headline to, "The West Attacks China With Tibet Issue, Inciting Chinese Patriotism Overseas". The edited version omitted all quotes critical of the Chinese regime's human rights abuses and added comments blaming the West for "suppressing China" with media reports of the crackdown in Tibet.
