Short answers, pulled from the story.
The South China Morning Post was founded by anti-Qing revolutionary Tse Tsan-tai and British journalist Alfred Cunningham. Its first issue was published on the 6th of November 1903 in Hong Kong.
The South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba Group. Alibaba completed its acquisition of the paper's media assets on the 5th of April 2016 for HK$2 billion (US$266 million).
As of September 2024, the South China Morning Post reaches 35 million monthly readers across multiple platforms. Its average audited print circulation for the first half of 2015 stood at 101,652 daily copies.
Yes. Critics including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Atlantic have alleged that since Alibaba's 2016 acquisition the paper promotes China's soft power. A 2021 content analysis found the SCMP more effective at conveying China's soft power than state media. Former senior editor Peter Langan resigned in October 2022 after the paper rejected his investigation into human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
For most of the 1990s, the South China Morning Post was the most profitable newspaper in the world on a per-reader basis. Profit peaked in 1997 at HK$805 million.
Yes. The SCMP's online news website is blocked in mainland China. As of 2018, the news site remains inaccessible there despite Alibaba's ownership.