Another glimpse into the works of state-owned media in China

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

For another view of working in China, by 24-year-old Charlie Gidney, who writes for the China Daily, check out his blog Positive Solutions.

In Sunday's post Boxes he talks about the various constraints that the English-language state-owned media are under.

I can't imagine what it must be like, starting your journalism career at a censored publication.

In my 15 years as a journalist, I can't remember a time when one of my stories was canned because of political or advertising considerations.

Though, of course, there have been plenty of instances when a story was sent back because an editor wanted me to do additional reporting or fix writing problems.

I am surprised by how often this question comes up, however -- and how frequently people don't believe my answer.

There is plenty of control in the US media, of course, but I believe it tends to have more to do with distribution of resources. Certain topics get more reporters thrown at them than others. (And I'm not talking about the television networks, but of the print media where I've worked --- news wires, newspapers, businesss magazines.)

As a result, as far as individual reporters are concerned, they can just go out and do their job. And leave it up to the editors to argue with the publishers about how much coverage certain areas require.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Back to Hong Kong -- and this time, it's personal

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

In three hours, the kids and I are leaving for Shanghai's Pudong airport to catch a flight to Hong Kong. I was just in Hong Kong last week, but that was for a financial conference.

This week, it's for vacation. It's the second year in a row that I'm taking an actual vacation with the babies. We're planning to spend a week at the beach, with maybe a day trip to Ocean World, their big amusement park. Last year, we went to the Hong Kong Disneyland.

I don't normally take vacations - until last year, I couldn't remember a vacation I'd been on -- except for one trip to Florida's Disney World when I was in college. I got sunstroke.

When I was in Russia, my idea of using up vacation days was a week at the Afghan border visiting the Russian border guards. I guess I've never felt that I needed a break from work. I loved my work. If I had free time, I would use it to do more work.

So now I schedule vacations. It's hard. I have a hard time justifying spending the money. And of taking the time away from the office.

Also, I have a hard time saying no to assignments. This week, I'm going to be working on three stories while on my vacation, totalling somewhere around 4,000 to 5,000 words.

I borrowed the nice laptop from the office to take on the road with me and it immediately crashed. So I'm going to have to take the little itty bitty one without an ethernet jack -- just a wireless modem. I hope I'm going to be able to use it somewhere. I forgot to call today and check which kind of connections the hotel had.

Maybe this is the excuse I need to buy a new -- or newish -- laptop. If I do, I'm getting a Mac.

These are the kinds of problems foreign correspondents have these days. When I was starting out, I wouldn't even think of going on the road and expecting to be able to work and report on and file a story from some little island somewhere. I used to carry pencils instead of pens because they were more reliable. I used to carry a camera that required no batteries of any kind except for the light meter, and even that you could fake if your eye was good -- or you took pictures at every conceivable setting. (My eye wasn't that good. I did plenty of bracketing.)

Once, in Chechnya, I got to file by fax, and that was great. I didn't have to dictate my story into the phone, yelling at the top of my lungs so that the editor could hear me. The actual phone line was secondary -- he could have probably heard me by leaning out the window.

Tomorrow I will need to pick up some IP phone cards in Hong Kong -- they're a way to make really cheap international phone calls. My entire office lives on them here in Shanghai, and the quality is usually better than AT&T.

And I'll be all set. Except for the lack of sleep part.

Oh, another editor just droped me a line ... I'm also going to be working on the pet food poison story this week.

Okay, time to go get some sleep. Only two hours left until I leave for the airport.

Signing off in Shanghai - sleepily,

Maria

A Russian artist in Shanghai

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

I met an interesting artist today at a private showing at a friend's house. He was in China for just a few days, on his way home to St. Petersburg, Russia from Osaka, Japan.

Georgii Kovenchuk's paintings have been condemned in the old Soviet Union for their "formalist" stance, show a strong, bold use of color and shape. Here is one of a white lily from the Gallery Kadieff in Helsinki. And here is "Woman on armchair."

At the party, Georgii was joined by one of his old friends, a Chinese artist who came to St. Petersburg to study in 1955. The Chinese friend still remembered a smattering a Russian, and we had a fun time trying to communicate. Later on in the evening, one of the other guests spoke Chinese, and for a while we had a relay going - the Chinese artist would say something in Chinese, the other guest would translate it into English, and I would relay it into Russian for Georgii -- and then back again for the response.

Georgii had some run-ins with the Soviet authorities because he wasn't interested in the Soviet Socialist Realist style of art. But he told the story that when he had trouble getting into art school -- his father was serving 25 years in a Gulag, accused of being a British spy because he had been a POW in a German camp that was liberated by British forces -- it was a KGB official who helped him get in.

These days, he says, he can say whatever he wants, and, better still, he is able to travel overseas. He has lectured in the United States, and has had gallery showings around the world.

He had some slide shows on his laptop but his computer had crashed and he was feeling pretty down about it. Fortunately, I have magic fingers when it comes to technology. I plugged the laptop in (thus solving the "it doesn't even turn on anymore" problem) then booted in safe mode, which allowed it to run long enough to see the pictures. The problem was viruses on the hard drive -- easy enough to fix, when he gets home, by installing an anti-virus program.

To thank me for my help, he gave me a wood cut as a present, which I plan to get framed tomorrow and hang on the wall. If I had known ahead of time there was a computer with a virus problem, I would have brought an antivirus disk with me and cleaned the computer up for him. Now I feel sorry that I couldn't do more to help.

The party itself was in an old lane house in the French Concession part of Shanghai. The hostess, Maria Laletina, shares my first name - at one point, there were four different Marias present, creating a little confusion.

The narrow house had five stories, with a room on each floor and a steep, twisty staircase. It was a beautiful, gorgeous house, the kind of place I would love to live (instead of the modern apartment in a high rise, where I actually live -- I didn't choose it, it was chosen for me).

Shanghai is starting to develop a very vibrant, multi national artistic community which I have been ignoring for the most part, sticking to business and economics instead.

I'm a little hyper-sensitive and most art makes me feel unsettled and unhappy. Kovenchuk's - such as the bright pieces that were hanging on the walls of the apartment -- had a grounded, happy feel to them with an undercurrent of depth and peace. It was a nice feeling.

I left early because I had to work. China has a funny habit of shutting down for a week at a time several times a year for government holidays -- but forces its people to work on the weekends to make up for some of that time.

Also, I'm trying to clear off as much out of my plate as I can, to get ready for my own vacation next week. So for me as well, it's a long, wearing weekend.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

The man who launched a dozen magazines

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Thursday night was our weekly Cotton's Bar drinks get-together. One of our new visitors was a man who launched twelve magazines.

Twelve magazines!

And in not a single case did a journalist make the move to publisher. I only know one man who did -- Graham Earnshaw, formerly of Reuters, who's now the successful publisher of the China Economic Review.

I need to talk to him again about how he did it.

Does anyone else know of any journalists who have made a transition to publisher?

The man who started the twelve magazines is now running an Internet-based business teleivion program in Japan and is in the process of expanding it to China and other Asian countries.

There's a lot of that kind of thing going on over here -- new channels, new publications, new everything spring up all around.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Back from Hong Kong

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

I was in Hong Kong this week for a conference, thus no postings -- for some reason, I couldn't reach the SPJ.org website from my hotel.

I do love to travel, but traveling is a lot more fun when you only have a little work to do. Just enough work to feel useful, on some interesting assignment that gets you in to see people that you wouldn't ordinarily see as a tourist, and to places you wouldn't ordinarily go.

But not so much work that you feel dead afterwards.

My work-related travel used to fall into the former category.

Lately, however, more and more of it has been of the "feeling dead afterwards" variety. Yesterday, for example, I spent the day at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Hong Kong, attending sessions about global regulatory changes in the securities industry, and then had lunch with industry experts. In the afternoon, I had back-to-back interviews with senior executives from Hewlett-Packard.

Then I checked back in with my office, handled a few minor administrative matters and gave writers advise on stories they were writing.

In the evening, I flew back to Shanghai. I got back to my house around 10 p.m. at night -- and then put in another full day's work, deadling with administrative matters and editing a big story on the Chinese securities industry. Unfortunately, the story had to be pretty much rewritten from scratch, and I didn't finally get to call it a day until 4 a.m.

Is it worth it? Yeah, I think it is. I enjoy the work very much, I do like the travel, and I'm slowly learning to delegate more.

Someday soon I expect that I'll be in control of my schedule, and will be able to plan my days so that I get adequate and regular sleep, and sufficient downtime to spend with my kids or at the gym.

Tonight, I've got meetings, more editing to do... my business manager just came into my office and told me to go home and take a nap. Do I really look that bad? I guess I do.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Back from Hong Kong

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

I was in Hong Kong this week for a conference, thus no postings -- for some reason, I couldn't reach the SPJ.org website from my hotel.

I do love to travel, but traveling is a lot more fun when you only have a little work to do. Just enough work to feel useful, on some interesting assignment that gets you in to see people that you wouldn't ordinarily see as a tourist, and to places you wouldn't ordinarily go.

But not so much work that you feel dead afterwards.

My work-related travel used to fall into the former category.

Lately, however, more and more of it has been of the "feeling dead afterwards" variety. Yesterday, for example, I spent the day at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Hong Kong, attending sessions about global regulatory changes in the securities industry, and then had lunch with industry experts. In the afternoon, I had back-to-back interviews with senior executives from Hewlett-Packard.

Then I checked back in with my office, handled a few minor administrative matters and gave writers advise on stories they were writing.

In the evening, I flew back to Shanghai. I got back to my house around 10 p.m. at night -- and then put in another full day's work, deadling with administrative matters and editing a big story on the Chinese securities industry. Unfortunately, the story had to be pretty much rewritten from scratch, and I didn't finally get to call it a day until 4 a.m.

Is it worth it? Yeah, I think it is. I enjoy the work very much, I do like the travel, and I'm slowly learning to delegate more.

Someday soon I expect that I'll be in control of my schedule, and will be able to plan my days so that I get adequate and regular sleep, and sufficient downtime to spend with my kids or at the gym.

Tonight, I've got meetings, more editing to do... my business manager just came into my office and told me to go home and take a nap. Do I really look that bad? I guess I do.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Looking for a managing editor

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Two different investors are offering me money to go directly to print with my new magazine (Emerging China, which covers business in central and western China) instead of starting just online first.

Even though it will be more work, we will probably do that -- more advertising revenue, better credibility with readers, more respect. :-)

That means that the position of managing editor will be more important than it was previously, and will be paid slightly better as well. So this means, instead of "starving to death" wages, we'll be paying "street-vendor fried rice wages with an occasional drink at an expat bar."

Chinese language skills are not required, though, obviously, they'll be a big help. More important is a good grasp of business news style and the ability to manage inexperienced writers of various nationalities (Chinese, Canadian, French, German, and Russian).

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Blog envy

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

I went to the Shanghaiist drinking beer thing tonight at Henry's Bar and Grill. I took pictures. Mostly, of guys standing arounding drinking beer. And one picture of a toilet in the ladies' room (Henry's has one of those things with heated seats and a built-in bidet -- very, very rare in Shanghai, where usually you're lucky to just get a seat and actual toilet paper).

Note to self: in the future, I'm going to try to get some action shots. So, instead of folks standing around talking, holding beers, and a separate shot of the toilet, I'll try to, say, combine the two.

I mean, I used to be a real photographer. I've got a picture of myself in Afghanistan in a photo vest wearing a bunch of camera equpment. (I carried a Nikon FM-2, which was famous for taking any kind of abuse and not requiring any batteries, and a Hi-8 the Sky TV guys loaned me.)

Anyway, I noticed that everyone at the bar had a cool name for their blog. Dan Washburn's Shanghaiist, for example, And the ImageThief was there (Will Moss, with his wife, Olivia) and AsiaPundit's Chris Myrick, and Pacific Epoch's Sage Brennan.

"Journalism and the World" is such a prosaic name for a blog, by comparison. Maybe we can call it "JoWo." No, you can't really pronounce it.

I'll have to think about it.

After a few beers, Chris mentioned that an outfit in Singapore was giving away ten free brides. Now I can't stop thinking about it. Is it like a bride of the month club? Do you pick the bride, or is it a surprise? Do you have to pay for shipping and handling? That's usually what gets you. They say "free bride" but when you add in the postage, whoa!

Foreign correspondents are notoriously bad at relationships. Ten free brides sounds like just the thing.

Even if 90% leave, disgusted by the fact that I'm always on the road -- and go out drinking with juornalists and bloggers at least twice a week -- I'll still have one bride left.

I'm thinking, Russian. She'll be over-educated, be willing to stay home and cook, and will teach my kids the language. The whole gender thing shouldn't be a problem - I'm from Massachusetts.

The only downside is that I won't be able to impress her with my guitar playing. You see, while a war correspondent, I learned a bunch of Russian war songs. Old Cossack ditties, and a WWII song or two. When I play them for non-Russians, they're usually suitably impressed. But a Russian would immediately see that I'm getting the words wrong, and that I'm not hitting any of the notes.

The other great thing about Russian women (and yes, I'm generalizing here) is that they treat their spouses like children. I could use some of that.

My Russian bride when I'm getting dressed: "Do you call those clothes? Here, put this on instead. I'll buy some new clothes for you while you're at work."

My Russian bride when I'm leaving for work: "Did you remember your lunch? Here, I'll pack it for you. And here's your cell phone. And don't forget to pick up some cabbage on the way home."

My Russian bride at dinner: "Oh, you're looking pale and thin. Here, have some borsch. Have some more. Is that enough sour cream for you?"

I would never have to go clothes shopping or cook anything ever again. She would take it as a personal insult if I even tried.

I had friends like that while I lived in Russia. Even though they were successful career women -- a couple of them were also war correspondents -- they would take one look at me and their mothering instincts would kick in.

It was nice.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Cotton's Bar is my new hiring hall

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Tonight at the foreign correspondents' get-together at Cotton's Bar on Anting Lu, I offered jobs to three people.

The first, Connie, was sharp as a tack, smart, organized, a finance student at Fudan University who's interested in a journalism career -- the perfect job candidate. The second was an old friend who's written for me before, Travis, now interning for the New York Times. (Do I have an eye for talent, or what?)

The third guy, I think, was named Bill. He introduced himself as a Russian spy. I think he was Canadian. It was around midnight by this time, and several Bloody Mary's and beers later. He and his friend .. Josh? ... were independent video guys.

Fons (Tuinstra, the speakers' bureau guy and the FCC founder) and magazine publisher Edmund Chow and I had been discussing a Japanese-American Internet video project having to do with interviewing business leaders in China.

Both Bill and ... Josh? ... were looking for work. I think. Bill was interested in print reporting, as well. I think.

Note to self: stop offering jobs to people after the second beer.

Actually, it might still work out. If Bill remembers me after he sobers up, and finds my card, and stops by the office, and turns out to be half-way intelligent, I might take him on board after all. I'm perennially short-staffed and I saw him chatting away in French to French financial journalist Benoit Florencon, and in Russian to Denis Antipov, a database developer for magazine websites. From what I could tell, Bill's Russian and French were both pretty damn good. And he claimed to know a bunch of other languages, as well. Hey there.

One of Bill's friends, an Australian, was just about to start a biking trip to Tibet. Unfortunately, he arrived just after Edmund left. Edmund is always on the lookout for travel writers.

At just before midnight, I had to call it quits. Editors were waiting for rewrites. When I left, the Australians and the Germans were still drinking with the Australian and the French guy.

Celebrity novelist Wang Lili couldn't make it tonight -- she was in Australia. But she sent me an email and Fons an SMS about her trip. She's about to interview a mayor down there.

Fons suggested that I run for the FCC board. He's the second person to tell me that this week. I do like the attention. But what would I do, except get people drunk? Oh, and offer entry-level jobs.

I can see my platform now: "Vote for Maria. She'll buy you a beer. And then exploit you."

Actually, it sounds dirty. Maybe it will work.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Go to Germany for ten months

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Just starting out in your career? Looking for a way to go overseas?

The folks over at the Council for International Exchange of Scholars asked me to let everyone know about a Fulbright grant for young journalism professionals.

"The Fulbright Scholar Beginning Professional Journalism awards offer young American journalists at the beginning of their careers the opportunity to spend 10 months in Germany conducting research and working in German print or broadcast media. Applications are now being accepted for the five awards available in 2008-2009. Beginning professional journalists or recent graduates in journalism or related fields are eligible to apply. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and have a level of German sufficient for research and work in German media. More information about this award can be found online at http://www.cies.org/award_book/award2008/award/Beg8256.htm."

In my experience, there are never enough people applying for these things, so if you fit the criteria, you've got a good chance of going.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Chinese media reaction to Virginia Tech gunman story

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

For a little while yesterday, there was a rumor that the gunman may have been a Chinese student who got his visa in Shanghai.

Chris O’Brien, a "language polisher" for the state-owned Xinhua News Agency dissects the reaction of the official government media on his blog, Beijing Newspeak. The comments section is also interesting, with some state TV folks weighing in as well.

(Thanks to Fons Tuinstra for pointing me to this blog.)

Danwei's Joel Martinsen also had an excellent and detailed post on this subject: Chinese media reacts to Virginia Tech shootings. The Peking Duck and the Shanghaiist also weighed in on this on their blogs, with some interesting links and commentary.

I don't cover politics, so I'm not going to talk about this further, just to add that the Beijing Newspeak blog is really interesting. A lot of folks who come over to China to work as aspiring journalists first get jobs as "language polishers" for the local media. Read this blog if you want to find out what that's like.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

I miss my junk TV

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Writing about financial technology all day and editing Asia payments stories, when I relax, I want to relax all the day. I want to vegg out in front of the TV and watch re-runs of Friends and the Simpsons. I want to watch The Office. And catch the latest police procedurals.

In China, this is all possible -- but not without breaking the law. There are a few movies available legally on DVD, and I buy them when I can -- they're only a few RMB more expensive than the pirated ones, so why not?

But the bulk of what I want to watch is not available here. You're never going to get me to admit, on the record, to buying pirated DVDs (I swear, I'm only holding them for friends). But not being able to watch TV and movies is for me one of the biggest disadvantages to living in China -- right up there with the lack of decent Chinese takeout and bad air.

ImageThief recommends a novel solution to China's IPR crisis: he things the US government should subsidize the distribution of American media as a cultural kind of Marshall Plan, in a post titled "American IPR hawks, remember the little people."

I hope someone is reading that.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Pulitzer board picks China stories second year in row

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

More proof that here in China, we're covering the biggest business story on the planet. This year, for the second year in a row, a Pulitzer was awarded for China coverage. This year, the Wall Street Journal got the prize. Here's a link to the winning stories.

Congratulations, WSJ.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Shanghai or Beijing?

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

When first coming to China, we had to make a decision: Shanghai or Beijing? (Other cities weren't even under consideration.)

I picked Shanghai because it has a stock exchange, and Beijing doesn't. I cover the securities industry. And I hate politics.

But I do have to admit that Beijing has more character. Everything in Shanghai looks as though it was built yesterday. And, well, it was.

I like my neighborhood dives to have that lived-in feel. There are a couple of places like that in Shanghai - but a lot of places like that in Beijing. Also, Shanghai's foreign restaurants seemed aimed at expats on expense accounts. Beijing's seem oriented more towards students and tourists -- two groups without as much money. And there are tons of Russian restaurants (Shanghai only has one). I'm a big fan of Russian food and music, my ethnic heritage showing through.

For the most part, journalists who come to China go to Beijing to cover politics, Shanghai to cover business. To me, it's similar to the difference between Washington D.C. and New York City.

Several other bloggers have been weighing in on this.

Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard wrote about the issue on his blog in "China's Future: Shanghai Or Beijing?"

Dan Harris of the China Law Blog also commented on this, and his posting drew a lively debate.

But the biggest story -- for me, anyway -- is the rise of China's second tier cities. Nitasha Tiku wrote about this topic on Inc.'s Fresh Inc blog: "Going Global, Part 8: Second-Tier Cities, First Rate Growth."

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Sleep sweet sleep

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Working in two -- or more -- time zones takes a toll. I need to stay up late many nights to talk with editors, interview sources in the US and Europe, rewrite stories on deadline, and deal with US-based staffers.

For a couple of weeks now, I've had several days in a row with four or five hours of sleep a night. I'm not a person who thrives on little sleep. I'm a person who thrives on lots of sleep. Nine hours a night, preferably.

There have been plenty of nights when I'm going to bed after the sun has come up.

After a while, I start feeling sleepy all the time, and drink gallons of Diet Coke to stay functional. A couple of weeks ago I ate something that disagreed with me, and stopped drinking the Diet Cokes to avoid aggravating my stomach even further with the caffeine. Once I was off the stuff -- the withdrawal symptoms were buried under the sick feelings -- I didn't want to be back on. I've been drinking only an occasional soda -- and no more than one a day -- for the past two weeks.

As a result, I feel sleepy all the time now. If I could spend 24 hours in bed, I probably would. Not forever. Just long enough to work off my accumulated sleep debt.

Today, I took the afternoon off and spent it in bed. I had meetings this evening, and meetings scheduled all day tomorrow. So I think I'll turn in early tonight -- in the early hours of the mornng. Well before sunrise.

I've been working like this for over three years now. My dream is to get on a regular schedule, where I get to be awake during the day and asleep at night.

I love being overseas, but the lack of sleep takes its toll.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

What I look for in a resume

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Since I'll be hiring for a few positions over the next couple of months, I'm already looking at resumes.

Here is my -- very subjective -- list of things I look for:

* Nice layout. Now, this has nothing to do with how good a reporter an applicant is. After all, they're not the ones who are going to be putting stories and graphics on the page. But I can't help it. I spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about layouts, so cluttered pages really set my teeth on edge. I like to see a crisp, clean layout. I don't like to see too many fonts, too many sizes, too many margins, too many style elements or, god forbid, colors. I hate seeing italics, widows or orphans, and indents that don't line up. And there's no excuse for bad layout, especially with the resume templates that come free in every copy of Microsoft Word.
* Consistency. If you use all four digits for a year in one place, I like to see it that way everywhere. If you use sentence fragments in bullet points and end them with periods, I want to see those periods at the end of every sentence fragment. When things aren't consistent, they jump out at me -- even before I read a single word. Inconsistent style, to me, indicates a lack of attention, a certain degree of carelessness. My reporters write about business -- I want them to be super careful with the smallest details.
* Grammar and spelling. Now, I'm willing to let this slide a little bit for non-native English speakers -- not everyone has a native English copyeditor friend. But there's no excuse for not using a spelling and grammar checker. Most of my resumes come in as Word documents -- and I have the spell check function turned on. If I see those colorful little wavy underlines, I can tell at a glance that the reporter hasn't run a spell check. Bad move.
* Conflicts of interest. If someone is applying for a job as a freelancer, and they're working at a PR agency or a company that we regularly cover, that's a big red flag. I normally send off a "sorry, but no thank you" letter right away. If there's a conflict or potential conflict, the applicant better explain it in the resume or the cover letter -- are they switching careers, for example?

Okay, for non-native English applicants I pretty much stop there. I don't expect someone from China, for example, to have a great deal of experience -- or to know how to write about it on a resume. I expect more from American applicants, however.

* Evidence of accomplishment. If a resume lists nothing more than titles and dates, that's a big warning sign for me. Did this guy do nothing at his jobs? I would like to see at least a couple of sentences about beats covered, major stories, high-profile interviews. I would like to find out what they learned at those jobs - and what mistakes they made. I don't like seeing "resume words" here - I prefer plain English, with nice, declarative sentences.
* Evidence of ambition. I want my reporters to be hungry. I like to see a resume that shows that the applicant routinely goes beyond the call of duty. I want to see extra-curricular research projects, active participation in professional organizations, membership in workplace taskforces. Even if you were only on an office committee to pick a new coffee filter, you're still ahead of the guy who sat back and let someone else pick the coffee filter for him.
* Evidence of dedication. I was a dutiful immigrant daughter in high school and college, and mostly focused on computers and engineering. This left only a little time to work for my high school and college newspapers. As a result, I'm somewhat intimidated by and envious of people who did the whole Chloe Sullivan thing. (From Smallville -- you know, that Superman TV show?) But I do like getting those resumes. And even someone who came to journalism late should have shown some signs earlier in life of wanting to do this, such as editing a church newsletter or being the webmaster for a club. Maybe reading Superman comics or keeping a diary regularly for 20 years doesn't deserve a place on the resume, but it could go in a cover letter.
* Evidence of brains. I'm prejudiced against communication majors. I think that a communications degree is the lowest form of education. Engineers need to be good with numbers. Chemistry majors have to understand chemistry. Biology and history and foreign language majors have to memorize stuff. English and philosophy majors have to read a lot of books. What do communication majors have to do? I don't know. I'm used to explaining the inverted pyramid in 15 minutes, with another half an hour for how to structure a feature story. What do they spend four years teaching, anyway? So I want to see a resume that shows that the applicant majored - or at least minored -- in a difficult subject. The harder, the better. If it's related to the beat, that's better still. The very last thing I want to see is a masters in journalism. If you're dead set on grad school, get a masters in economics and write for the local paper while you're there. Maybe take a couple of journalism courses just to learn what the inverted pyramid is all about -- or just read a book. It's not rocket science. I'm currently hiring for a financial reporter and a medical reporter. I want to see majors in business or economics or math for the former, and biology and chemistry for the latter. If you can learn those, learning how to report will be a breeze. And given the employment situation in the United States these days, only a total idiot would be studying journalism and nothing else right now. Major in something serious -- or at least minor in it. Don't take "math for poets" -- take the heavy-duty stuff. It doesn't have to be an economics degree, though that's great if you want to be a business reporter. You could major in government, sociology, history, criminal justice, languages, the natural sciences -- whatever it is you want to start out writing about. Something that shows you can learn, that you've got a head on your shoulders.
* Evidence of persistence. This is the main skill required in reporting. Calling back, over and over, until someone finally gives you that quote. Scouring the Internet until you finally find that press release or financial report. Writing and rewriting a story until an editor is happy. I hate employees who keep coming back to me complaining that they can't find the materials they need, or can't find anyone to talk to. I've got just one answer for them: "Keep looking!" I have this really horrible habit: if someone can't find something online and gives up, I can usually sit down at the computer and find it in three minutes (okay, I cheat -- I usually have a good idea of where to find things before I even start, but it still looks imperssive). Then I do a little dance (really, I do) and sing a little song about it. It is humiliating. Oh -- and it can be embarrassing for the employee, too. Anyway, a little bit of persistence would have avoided embarrassment all around. So I would like to see evidence of persistence in the resume. So if you called 100 people for a story, put that in. Though, usually, people demonstrate persistence by hounding me after they send me their resume. If someone calls or emails me more than five times, I usually offer them a job. Even if I have to create one for them. A reporter who doesn't give up is the greatest gift an editor could possibly get.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Managing foreign staff -- using Google Translate

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Today a writer who speaks no English sent me an email in Chinese. I read it using Google Translate and sent him a reply -- using Google Translate to translate my answer into Chinese. He had pitched a story about the labor problems McDonald's has been having lately (they were recently cleared of paying too little to their part-time student employees).

I am potentially interested in the story, if he can add a second-day lead to it, and get people to talk on some very specific topics (I sent him a list of questions).

The email is part of a long email conversation I've had with him. So far, I've understood what he was telling me -- and he seems to understand what I'm telling him. At least, he's been responding very appropriately to my requests.

My business manager tells me that the translation that Google does into Chinese sounds like a foreigner wrote it, but is understandable. Whoo hoo! That's exactly the effect I'm going for, anyway. :-)

Is anybody else doing this?

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Beware of your blog

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Today, a job applicant sent me a resume in English (and very nice job, well formatted - the resumes I'm getting have improved a lot, just in the three years that I've ben here in China). She also sent me a link to her Chinese-language blog. I sicced Google on it and it was a dramatic, existential, cry-for-help type of thing.

Note to potential job applicants: If you send me a link to your blog, make sure it's all dry and boring. My ideal blog topic? You read economics stories and point out math mistakes.

I don't mind if there's occasional personal life in the blog -- just enough to make you seem human. Here's the kind of entry I have in mind:

Today, the doctors told me I might have cancer. The results won't be in for a week. The agony of not knowing is unbearable. Meanwhile, I have story deadlines. Thank god for work! Nothing takes my mind of my troubles better than writing a thousand words on agricultral subsidies.

Or:

My boyfriend called me today. Drama, drama, drama. He wants me to leave work early to go to some concert. Then to a nice dinner in a fancy restaurant where he says he has an important question to ask me. Well, I do like eating. But... leave work early? No way! Then, get this, he says I love my job more than him! Well, duh! So long, loser!

If I Google a writer's name and a personal blog comes up I might glance at it briefly to check it out - is it well-punctuated? Does the writer confess to any crimes or profess a hobby of stealing office supplies? Is there massive plagiarism or copyright violation going on? But otherwise I'm not going to read it too much -- a personal life is a personal life.

But if you email me the link to the blog as part of your job application, I'm going to take a pretty close look at it. I mean, just the fact that you're sending me a link to a personal blog means that you're having trouble with the whole "work is work and personal is personal" concept.

This is the same reason I have problems with including hobbies on resumes -- unless, again, your hobby is something job-related like statistical analysis.

I have to confess, though -- I'm not consistent about this. If I'm hiring for a senior-level management position, I want to know about a person's personality. If I'm hiring for an entry-level job, I mostly want to know that the person is professional.

I guess, after you've had a few years of work experience, I'm going to assume that you know how to stay focused on the job.

But with entry-level staff, especially those who have never held a job before, the ability to keep your mind on work is very critical. I've had employees -- both in first-time jobs -- who would take off early (or disappear for weeks) -- because of personal problems. Personal problems that wouldn't even phase someone older. Such as fights with boyfriends.

Employees with more experience who have a personal problem will schedule things in advance, take sick days or make up the work on their own time, and not tell me too many details unless I ask. Basically, they arrange things so that they impact work as little as possible.

I don't mind hiring people who don't live for their work, who have hobbies and real lives.

But I do live for my work and, I assume, most people who rise high in organizations are the same.

So when you send me a resume and supporting materials, I want you to be able to convince me that, for eight hours a day, you can at least pretend to be living for your work.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Living vicariously through other people's blogs

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

I've often fantasized about the cool life I would someday lead... in Moscow, in Paris, in Kabul. And I regularly reminisce about the cool times I had -- in Moscow, in Paris, and in Kabul. But, depressingly, when you're actually living it, live becomes very ordinary very quickly.

The first day in Moscow was: "Wow! I'm in Moscow! This is so cool!"
The second day in Moscow was: "Geez, the traffic is not getting any better, is it? And what's with the weather?"

I'm sure, years down the line, I'll be telling people about all the cool things I did in Shanghai. But, right now, living it, it all seems very ordinary and routine. Yes, launching a magazine, yes, meeting with investors, yes, going out for drinks with editors and novelists and publishers and entrepreneurs. In retrospect, it sounds great. And that was just yesterday.

But when I was living it, yesterday, it was all: "Another meeting, another beer, hope I can get some sleep tonight."

Next week, I'm flying to Hong Kong for a conference. It's going to be so cool -- until I actually get there. Then the cool will be instantly gone and it will become "same old, same old."

For example, Hong Kong air is sweet and fresh -- compared to Shanghai's polluted, smoke-filled, urine-soaked diesel fuel stench. Five minutes after getting there, and I won't notice the difference anymore.

Am I the only person who enjoys live most either before or after actually living it?

Anyway, some people have really cool lives, and I've been envying their blogs lately.

For example, there's the Maitresse, a freelance writer who blogs about literary life in Paris. I look at that blog -- and its graphics -- and I think to myself, "that is a cool life."

Even here in Shanghai, reading the local blogs, everything looks cooler once its on the Internet.

For example, the Shanghaiist just posted a report about a UFO citing here. I didn't see the UFO. And I just checked out the window -- nope, nothing. And Asiapundit seems to have a much cooler reading list than I do.

Oh, I do have to add -- Asiapundit has a very very cool baby. I babysat for him and his wife on Sunday, and their baby girl was just adorable. And holding that baby was much cooler than just remembering it afterwards.

Hmm... maybe I should spend more time with my own kids? Well, my daughter does have a newspaper and an online interactive game that goes with her imaginary world... Maybe I can set up a nice content management system for her... a little bit of mother-daughter bonding.

And my son, the future space station designer, has developed an interest in astrophysics. (I spent a year as an engineering physics major, still love that stuff.) Maybe it's time to explain relativity to him. He's 9, he's old enough.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Why Britney Spears' bare bottom is a good thing

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post (and comments).

Yesterday, I met a man who bemoaned the state of US media, and its obsessive focus on the minutia of celebrity lies and other distractions.

Or at least I think he did -- I launched into my speech without letting him finish making his point.

You see, he reminded me of a day back in grad school. I was studying Central Asian languages -- Uzbek, Tajik, Farsi -- and area culture and history at Indiana University, and one of our professors was an anthropologist. He explained that anthropology was the science of "studying down." Powerful people -- governments, corporations, universities -- send researchers around to study the powerless -- tribesmen living in remote villages, inner city youths, their own employees.

Then the powerful use the information they gain to become more powerful. This is, apparently, an ethnical problem for some anthropologists.

I suddenly had a realization -- there is one profession that studies up. Where poor people collect pennies and nickels and pay for researchers to go study the habits of the rich and powerful. That profession is journalism. (I immediately quit grad school and went off to Detroit to fill in as UPI's bureau chief there, back when UPI was still a going concern.)

Most of us remember those National Geographic photo spreads of naked natives in Africa and South America. Well, now those naked natives can log on to the Internet at their local Web cafes and see pictures of us naked. And by us, I mean Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and the whole gang.

What's not to like about that?

Powerless people want to know things about the powerful. Yes, some want to know useful, serious, practical stuff -- where do they invest their money? How do they make decisions? That sort of thing. This is where the Wall Street Journals and BusinessWeeks come in, and a fine job they do.

But other people would prefer to infiltrate the powerful elite by social climbing. They want to know who the powerful hang out with. Where they socialize. What they wear. Not everybody is going to act on this information by getting the right clothes, hair and accessories and going out and bagging a movie star -- but we can all dream about it. And all those tabloid magazines -- the People and US and and all the rest -- give us the tools, the knowledge we need, should we ever decide to do it.

And those of us in the lifestyle business -- the makers of handbags and jewelry, for example -- can learn how to market them, where to sell them, and how to get celebrities to wear them.

Information is power. The more powerless people can learn about those in power, the more they can level the playing field. Economically. And socially.

And that can't be a bad thing.

And if the price we pay is being forced -- by the media, of course, and purely for research purposes -- to click on the link to Britney's photos and Paris' video, well that's the price we have to pay for informational equality. I, for one, am willing to sacrifice my eyeballs. Yes, by buying US and People, and economically supporting the paparazzi, I am striking a blow for the disenfranchized everywhere.

Yes, the rich and powerful can no longer live their lives of luxury in secret, manipulating the world behind the scenes. The photographers and the snoops are there in force, ferreting out all the secrets, both trivial and important.

And more power to them.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Hiring again

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

I'm starting yet another recruiting cycle tomorrow. This month, I'm looking for a new full-time finance reporter. Next month, I'll be hiring someone with a biology or life sciences background. Both are entry-level positions -- low pay, long hours.

I haven't even put our the formal announcements yet, but resumes are already coming in.

Today, the CEO of an international events company told me that I'm aiming too low. Instead of increasing head count by one or two people a month, I could be working on an international level, starting new magazines with the resources of a multinational behind me. (He meant, his.)

Tomorrow I meet with another publisher, who also wants to offer money.

So I'm thinking: could I be more effective if I had more money to spend, or would it just get in the way? If I hired more programmers to do the development work, instead of spending time myself playing with the databases (I do love playing with databases). If I hired assistants to handle my email and other routine administrative tasks. If I hired a writer to do my blog. :-)

I know some dot-coms just floundered when they had too much money. Working within their own resources made them discliplined and focus and helped contribute to their long-term success. But others got cash infusions and just soared.

Is there any way to know which category you're in, except through hindsight?

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Letting go of war

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

There was a great story in the LA Times today -- Reporter recalls the layers of truth told in Iraq (thanks, Lauren, for bringing it to my attention).

The part that particularly struck me was when Borzou Daragah, the LA Times former bureau chief in Baghdad, wrote about lying to his closest and dearest about how much danger he was in. He also talked about war reporting as an addiction.

I also noticed that he skimmed over the part about how he first became a war correspondent - specifically, the practical aspects of how he went about getting his first assignment. I don't know if this was intentional on his part, or if it just wasn't germane to a general-interest story, but I also feel reluctance to say, in print, how I got my first war reporting assignment.

I don't mind telling people in private, when it's clear that they won't go to the frontlines themselves. But I'm always worried that somebody might read it, decide that they can do it too, and then get themselves killed.

For example, people who hate mass murderers should not go to a war zone. You're going to meet a lot of mass murderers. And if you hate them, they'll take offense, and have you killed.

Being curious about them is fine, I think. Being a war geek is fine -- thinking that guns and helicopters are cool, or being a fan of strategic military planning, or whatever. Being an insane thrill-seeker is fine. But if you make them feel bad about what they do, they're going to kill you to make that feeling go away. Now, most people don't like mass murderers, and have a hard time hiding this fact when they meet them face to face.

One solution is to become schitzophrenic. When you're there, say, "Oooh, cool gun! What kind of bullets does it shoot? Got any tracer rounds?" And then when you get home, you write, "Then the so-called 'Butcher of Blkjalkistan' carressed his AK-47 SM and told me, 'I like to practice killing on local livestock. We get great barbecues in our unit. I try to kill at least a few things every day, and we're running short of innocent civilians.'"

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

My "movie star" theory of expat dating

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

I recently met a couple of expat women here in Shanghai who've given up on datting. I'm sure there are plenty of women (and men) back home as well who've given up, but when you're overseas the problems feel worse. You have less in common with the people around you, there are no family members to set you on well-meaning blind dates, and there are few permanent social networks, like churches and sports leagues. Those that do exist are filled with people who are only in Shanghai temporarily, and too tied up with their own problems to worry about their single friends.

For women expats, the problems are particularly acute because of the economic (and height) differences with local men.

There are two ways to look at this. The doom-and-gloom, wait-to-get-back-home approach is one. I prefer the "Hollywood movie star" theory of expat dating.

According to this theory, being a Western woman in China and trying to date is a lot like being a Hollywood star back in the US. If you're a male star and you walk into a bar, all the girls are all over you, telling you that you're the sexiest, asking you to sign their boobs and giving you their phone numbers. If you're a woman -- say, Nicole Kidman -- all the guys are too scared to go up to you. Except for a couple of weirdos, and some old ladies who ask you if your hair color is natural.

If you're a female movie star, you've got a lot of competition -- all the women in the world want to date male movie stars.

But you know, if I was Nicole Kidman (in my pre Keith Urban but post Tom Cruise days) I wouldn't sit around and bemoan my fate. After all, I'm Nicole Kidman! If I walk into a bar, sure, everyone is scared of me. But all I have to do is crook my little finger and any guy will come running. After all, I'm Nicole Kidman!

So we Western women have to learn to do what Hollywood movie stars do.

First, they meet guys at work. After all, movie stars have a particular set of problems, and who better to understand than other movie stars? I think that's why, even when they have all the women in the world to choose from, many male stars marry female stars.

Then, you date other guys in the industry. The producers, the directors, the key grips, the backup dancers. In expat terms, for a European or American women, this might mean reaching beyond the national groups you are closest to in culture to, say, South America or Eastern Europe.

Then you broaden the circle further. Hollywood stars date newspaper editors and lawyers and athletes and musicians. Broadening the comfort circle for Western women, this might mean going beyond your cultural comfort zone even further to say, other Asian countries -- where the culture is Westernized to some extent, like Japan or South Korea.

Then, finally, movie stars sometimes date the "girl next door" or "guy next door." Usually, there's something particularly cool about the person, though. Here the cultural gap is the widest, but people sometimes still make it work. In China, this might translate to dating Chinese intellectuals or business executives. The benefits here include the fact that the regular guy or gal doesn't have the personality problems and hangups associated with being a celebrity (or an expat). In China, you also get to practice Chinese. And there is a little leniency about your own bad behavior -- after all, you're a movie star (or a foreigner) -- weird behavior is even expected.

When in Russia, I made a point of dating guys from every republic I worked in, and it was great. Occasionally, a guy would try to compare me to local girls -- but it was usually in a positive way. I was more fun, more outgoing, more adventurous. Also taller, richer, and with an American passport, but nobody was gauche enough to mention this.

Did it bother me that maybe one reason guys was interested was because I was American? Not too much. After all, the reason guys are first interested in pretty girls is because they're pretty. And girls are first attracted to guys because of their looks or jobs. But the reason they stay is because of deeper qualities. The looks, or the job, or whatever, just helps open the door a little bit.

So how do female movie stars get all those guys within and outside the industry? They have to be proactive and let guys know they're interested. I guess it feels a little too much Elizabeth Taylor at
first, but what guy wants to be shot down by a movie star? It's too humiliating. Especially if it happens in public. After all, every guy secretly dreams of being with a movie star -- being turned down will mean that those dreams are gone for good.

Similarly, I think many men dream of meeting a glamorous, globe-trotting American or European woman and being whisked away to a life of adventure and excitement. (I'm not talking about my life here, of course.) But if they go up to that woman and she says no, then he will feel even poorer and more boring than he felt before.

But if the Hollywood movie star sends a friend over to tell him she thinks he's cute or asks him for an innocuous favor -- and then flatters him shamelessly afterwards -- well, he might get up the nerve to ask her out.

Signing off in Shanghai -- with high hopes --

-- Maria

Nice bit of investigative journalism by Chinese reporters

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Here is the translation of a report about a bit of investigative journalism into KFC and McDonald's wage problems in the south of China. (Thanks to Fons Tuinstra for bringing it to my attention.)

It details how a journalist and student interns went undercover to expose some bad labor practices.

I personally would have liked to see a bit more meat to the reporting -- more interviews with other employees, a bit more comparative data about what other restaurants (both foreign and local) are paying their staff, more from government officials, maybe a labor union perspective.

But given that the whole idea of investigative reporting in China is still in its infancy, they did a pretty decent job.

For those who think that American brands are being singled out -- first, everybody goes after the biggest names. There are few well-known Chinese fast food chains. Second, foreign media pick up on stories that involve international brands. If the same newspaper did exposes of local street vendors, for instance, nobody would care except for people who live on that street. Neither the national Chinese media nor the international media would pick up on it the same way that they did the KFC-McD's story.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

The perils of investigative journalism in China

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

In the previous post, I included a link to the EastSouthWestNorth blog, which translates some of the more interesting stories from Chinese newspapers into English.

Certainly puts the business reporting that I do into perspective.

From recent posts:

The Fenyang Mining Disaster (04/07/2007) (Shanxi Daily)

On April 2 afternoon, the reporter came to the Sankeng mine again. He was jostled by unidentified men who threatened to bury him and his driver in a ditch. Out of safety considerations, the reporter left the scene. Then a crazy car case occurred with a black Santana.

CCTV Reporters Assaulted in Qinhuangdao City (04/07/2007) (NetEase)

According to Wang Liping, at around 9:20am, the three were filming from a bridge overlooking an iron factory at Zhugezhuang town, Changli county. They were blocked by a white van in front and a black Honda sedan in the back. More than ten identified men then dragged the three of them out of the car and took away their camera, mobile telephone, car keys and driver license.

(Apple Daily)

Yesterday morning, was filming the rule-breaking, polluting iron factories in Zhugezhuang town, Changli county, Qinhuangdao city. Suddenly, a white van stopped the progress of their vehicle. Then another black sedan arrived. More than twenty persons dragged the three CCTV reporters out of the car. Worse yet, some of the men dragged the female reporter to the river side (more than 10 meters deep) and attempted to throw her into the river. When a male reporter attempted to come to her assistance, he was kicked several times in the chest. During the tussle, the female reporter was injured in the hands, face and waist. During the beating, the men were yelling: 弄死一個是一個 (One dead is one down).

Signing off in Shanghai - where the scariest thing that ever happens to me is filing tax forms

-- Maria

Bribing reporters now illegal in China

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

On Tuesday, the Chinese government issued a degree making it illegal to bribe journalists to run (or not run) stories. Here's the China Daily story.

I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand: bribery - bad. Ethics - good.

On the other hand - freedom of the press.

There are plenty of journalists who take money from sources in the United States. In Singapore, I met a few who claimed they were able to keep things "separated in their heads" so the money wouldn't influence their coverage.

And then there are publications that out-and-out sell advertising space. We all know who they are. Everybody knows. And it's obvious to the readers that they do it. These are mostly small pubs focused on narrow business segments or on the small towns where they're based, but it happens at bigger pubs, too.

One magazine I freelanced for (waaay back) told me to call advertisers first for quotes.

And, one year, I wrote a few dozen "advertorial" articles about advertisers for a suburban Detroit paper. Yes, it was clear to me that these were advertorials (there was a little label to that effect somewhere on the supplement) but I'm sure plenty of readers thought this was straight editorial -- though unusually up-beat and cheerful.

I do believe that the free press is worth having, warts and all.

I believe that if a newspaper or magazine fawns too much over its advertisers, circulation will drop and it will go out of business. Also, it will lose its best staffers and eventually wind up with the rejects that nobody else wants to hire -- and nobody wants to read. (As well as a few good people stuck there by temporary necessity, but furiously looking for a way out.)

But I am pleased that attention is being paid to the problem -- maybe, in a few years, there will be a population of experienced, ethical Chinese journalists that foreign publications can start hiring from.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Associated Press links to Chinese blogger

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

I don't know how long this has been happening, but I just noticed that the Associated Press quoted a Chinese blogger on a story (about a famous house in the south of China that developers could not demolish and that stuck out for three years like a nail in the middle of a huge construction zone).

The house owners just agreed to a compensation deal and the house came down, with the blogger as witness.

In addition to quoting the blogger, Zhou Shuguang, in the story, the Associated Press also linked to his blog. The blog is in Chinese, but you can read the Google translation of it.

Unfortunately, the nail house story is on an inside page, which I can't get to, because the Blogspot domain that hosts the blog is blocked here in China.

To me, this says something interesting about the transformation of the professional reporter. A few years ago, it would have been almost impossible to find a witness to that event, unless a reporter actually went there and canvassed neighbors.

In fact, one of the roles I was proudest off as a war correspondent was as witness -- I saw what happened, and wrote it down, and told everyone about it. There were no secrets if I was around.

In practice, this simply meant that folks would wait until I was gone before organizing the massacre.

Now, there are witnesses everywhere who share their experiences with the public. Not just in high-profile areas like Baghdad, but in the small dramas like the Chinese nail house.

The other part of the nail house story that I particularly like is that owners used the bloggers to get national media attention, used that to get international media attention, and then leveraged that for a higher settlement from developers.

I feel so proud. China is growing up so fast.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

How to get people to talk to you on the telephone

Note: This blog post also ran in the Society of Professional Journalism's "Journalism and the World" blog. Click here to see the original post.

Being out here in China, where there's a huge shortage of experienced English-speaking business reporters, I frequently have to hire staff with no reporting experience at all and train them up from scratch.

The first question every since new hire has is: "How do I get people to talk to me?"
This is often accompanies by, "This is China. People don't like talking to strangers, and they especially don't like talking to foreigners."

The problem, of course, isn't limited to China -- or, in my experience, any worse in China than anywhere else.

I remember one old reporter in the cubicle next to mine back