金融时报:阿里巴巴收购南华早报

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2021年10月24日

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阿里巴巴收购南华早报

南华早报集团周一（12月14日）宣布，将以约20.6亿港元（2.66亿美元）出售旗下媒体业务给中国阿里巴巴集团。《南华早报》是香港本地唯一的收费英文报章，创刊于1903年。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

pledge许诺[pledʒ]

portrayal描绘[pɔ:'treɪəl]

prestigious有声望的[pre'stɪdʒəs]

toned down下调，降温

lens镜头[lenz]

ominous不祥的['ɒmɪnəs]

Alibaba to buy South China Morning Post （416 words）

By Henry Mance in London and Henny Sender in New York

Jack Ma's Alibaba Group has acquired the South China Morning Post, pledging to use the English-language newspaper to counter ‘negative' portrayals of China overseas.

The acquisition — Alibaba's first media investment outside of mainland China — echoes the purchase of the Washington Post by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2012. Although that investment was made by Mr Bezos personally, Amazon has since integrated the Washington Post into some of its offerings.

Alibaba did not disclose the price that it is paying for the SCMP. Founded in 1903, the newspaper was once a prestigious, independent voice in Hong Kong, but has been criticised for seeming increasingly close to Beijing's official line in covering politics.

Now, analysts in Hong Kong fear that economic and financial coverage will also be toned down.

Joe Tsai, Alibaba's executive vice-chairman, said that the company would “let the editors decide the editorial policy and direction of coverage for any story”. But he also criticised western news organisations for covering China through “a very particular lens”.

“When people don't really understand China and have the wrong perception of China, they also have a lot of misconceptions about Alibaba,” he separately told The New York Times. “What's good for China is also good for Alibaba.”

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, said Mr Tsai's comments were “pretty ominous”.

English-language, Chinese news organisations currently include state-controlled newspaper China Daily and state broadcaster CCTV News.

The SCMP had a daily print and digital circulation of 102,000 last year, and claims to be the most read newspaper among Hong Kong's business elite. Mr Tsai said that Alibaba would “expand the SCMP's readership globally”.

Alibaba's media interests include film production, video streaming and a $194m investment in financial media company, China Business News. It will acquire the SCMP and other media assets, but not the listed parent company, SCMP Group, whose shares are suspended due to an insufficiently large free float.

SCMP's newspaper division fell into an adjusted operating loss of HK$2.7m (£230,000) in the first half of this year. Adjusted operating profits at its magazines arm, which publishes local versions of titles such as Cosmopolitan and Bazaar, fell one-third to HK$31.6m.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp acquired a 35 per cent in SCMP in 1986, but sold most of its holding to Robert Kuok, a Malaysian billionaire, in 1993.

When SCMP disclosed last month that it had received takeover interest, it was widely reported that Mr Ma, rather than Alibaba, the company he founded, was the suitor.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.Who bought the Washington Post?

A.Jack Ma

B.Amazon group

C.Jeff Bezos

D.Rupert Murdoch

答案(1)

2.Who will decide the direction of coverage for any story after the acquisition?

A.Beijing authorities

B.editors

C.Alibaba

D.Hong Kong authorities