By Seth Fiegerman From Mashable

Alibaba has long dominated China’s online shopping market. Now the company is about to own a significant chunk of the country’s media industry too.

The Chinese e-commerce giant announced on Friday that it has agreed to acquire the South China Morning Post, a popular English-language daily newspaper in China. Along with the deal, Alibaba will get Hong Kong editions of magazines like Esquire, Elle and Cosmo.

Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

So what does a $200 billion technology behemoth need with a daily newspaper and a random collection of magazines? It’s all about tapping into the media’s ability to shape the public perception of China at a time when concerns about its economy are shaking confidence in businesses like Alibaba.

“Our business is so rooted in China, and touches so many aspects of the Chinese economy, that when people don’t really understand China and have the wrong perception of China, they also have a lot of misconceptions about Alibaba,” Joseph Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman, said in an interview with The New York Times.

In a separate interview with the South China Morning Post, Tsai nonetheless stressed the idea of maintaining editorial independence.

“We have to have the readers’ trust. That will depend on reporting that is objective, balanced and fair. If we don’t have that trust, we cannot build up our readership,” Tsai said in the interview with the publication he is about to own. “Even though we are the corporate owner, we will let the editors decide the editorial policy and direction of coverage for any story. That’s our basic principle.”

There had previously been rumors that Alibaba’s eccentric billionaire founder Jack Ma would buy up a stake in the newspaper, perhaps following in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of America’s e-commerce giant Amazon, who bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million.

At times it can be difficult to discern the difference between Ma’s personal investment interests and Alibaba’s. Ma now serves as executive chairman of The Alibaba Group, but maintains a large stake in the company and is widely viewed as its brand ambassador abroad.

The latest deal is not Alibaba’s first venture into media. The company also stakes in China Business News and Weibo, the latter of which is often dubbed China’s version of Twitter.

While Alibaba’s stock has swooned in recent months, the $25 billion it raised in its public offering last year has given it plenty of runway to invest in a broad range of businesses in China and abroad, including startups like Lyft, Snapchat and Tango.

IMAGES:
Copies of South China Morning Post are sold at a news stand in Hong Kong, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba says itâIMAGE: KIN CHEUNG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jack Ma IMAGE: KIN CHEUNG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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