Archive Interview: This interview was originally published by Mediabistro in the mid-2000s. It is republished here as part of the Mediabistro archive.
This Beijing-based correspondent reported for The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and NPR from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma, and covered Ethiopia, the Western Sahara, and Bangladesh for a number of other outlets. She was NPR’s Southeast Asia correspondent and their first China correspondent before landing a gig at BBC/Public Radio International’s “The World” in 2003. Here, Mary Kay Magistad tell us how she writes stories about the 2008 Olympic Games, earthquakes and government crackdowns, despite government censorship and limited Internet access, and gives us her take on what a New China could mean for aspiring journalists.
Describe your role as a correspondent for “The World.” How did you land that gig, what were you doing prior to that, and how long have you been based in Beijing and why?
“The World” is a co-production of Public Radio International and the BBC, an international news and current affairs program that broadcasts weekdays throughout the United States. It started in 1996, the same year I opened NPR’s Beijing Bureau, after years reporting for NPR in Southeast Asia. The NPR “Morning Edition” editor with whom I’d worked, Bob Ferrante, eventually went over to become executive editor of “The World,” and asked if I was interested in joining. I first took a breather, doing the Nieman and Radcliffe fellowships at Harvard, and joined The World as China correspondent in early 2003.
It’s been a big year, covering Tibet, earthquakes and the 2008 Olympic Games. What tactics do you use to report on such extreme topics, in a vast country known for its distrust of foreign press?
I’ve now reported in China for three and a half years for NPR and almost six for “The World,” and I think the difficulties of reporting in China are sometimes overstated. Yes, the Tibet crackdown posed unusual challenges in terms of access, and yes, foreign journalists are from time to time monitored or followed, and sometimes even detained. But the vast majority of the time, we’re able to do our reporting with very little government interference. This has been especially true since a new set of reporting regulations came into effect in January 2007. Before that, it was technically illegal for foreign journalists to talk to anyone or go anywhere without first asking permission from the “appropriate authorities” — whomever they might be — if you’re, say, interviewing a cab driver, or a street vendor, or a farmer. By contrast, the new regulations say foreign journalists can interview anyone who agrees to be interviewed, and can travel anywhere where there are not specific restrictions. Of course, those “specific restrictions” were called into play during the Tibet crackdown; the government said that as a matter of national security, it could not allow foreign journalists into Tibetan areas.
The ‘new’ regulations — which are now almost two years old — were created for the period leading up to and during the Beijing Olympics. They’re due to expire in mid-October. The foreign correspondent community in China has been urging the government to make these or similar regulations permanent, as a sign that China has the confidence to adopt international best practices. We’re waiting to see what happens.
Meanwhile, there’s been a trend — that’s concerned many of us — that while public security officials can no longer go after us as much as they used to, they have taken to intimidating or threatening or even detaining people we talk to, particularly on sensitive stories. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has been vocal about speaking out against this and for a more open media environment in China. If you’re interested, you can read FCCC reports on press freedom in China.
How has Beijing changed (in attitudes towards foreign journalists, and other) since you’ve lived there? How were the Olympics a catalyst for that change?
It’s much easier now to do substantive interviews with ordinary Chinese people than it was when I opened NPR’s Beijing bureau in 1996. Back then, I remember a lot of wariness and nervousness, and if I was doing “vox” — people on the street interviews — particularly on a sensitive subject, I’d have to be prepared to approach half a dozen or more people to get one of them to talk on tape. Now, I would say two out of three are happy to give an opinion on most things.
Why the change? Part of it is that China has steadily opened up. People have more access to information, and are more used to interacting with foreigners. Also importantly, there’s less direct government oversight of people’s day-to-day lives, and as a result less fear of retribution for saying the wrong thing. That’s especially true of the younger generation — those under 30, who have grown up in a stable and prosperous time, with no personal experience of political upheaval. Many of them feel they have a right to have an opinion and have it heard. It’s refreshing.
| “The instinct to stand up for one’s rights is there, and growing, and comes out on such issues as property, and the environment and health. It comes out as citizen journalism.” |
I don’t think the Olympics were the catalyst for this change. It’s something that’s been happening gradually over the past decade. If anything, in the run-up to the Olympics the government stressed “social harmony” — code for people not criticizing the government, not demonstrating, not doing anything other than presenting a united and happy face for the world’s Olympics fans to see.
But there is a growing feeling, especially among educated, urban Chinese, that they deserve to have a say, and to hold the government accountable. The government tries to limit how much civil society can organize, particularly on a national level, lest such organization transform itself into a political movement. A case in point is the current tainted milk scandal. Lawyers around the country have organized to help families whose kids have been poisoned by melamine, a toxic chemical added to watered-down milk to make it look like it has more protein. Some of those lawyers say they’ve received calls from their local governments, telling them to stop helping the families, or being part of this lawyers’ coalition, or risk losing their licenses to practice.
The milk scandal is the kind of issue people could rally around, nationally, and it seems government doesn’t want to let such a movement take off. Even so, the instinct to stand up for one’s rights is there, and growing, and comes out on such issues as property, and the environment and health. It comes out as citizen journalism and online postings, as street demonstrations, and even as lawsuits against government officials. It’s gradually changing the rules of the game, and the government has had to at least partially change with it, even as it tries to contain such efforts. It’s a fascinating dynamic to watch, and in the long-term, I think, a positive trend for China.
Does the Great Firewall of China really exist, and how do you access information that hasn’t been filtered by the government? How has said information become more or less accessible post-Olympics?
Ah, the Great Firewall. Yes, it exists. And it’s annoying, but not insurmountable. Foreign correspondents, and many Chinese citizens, use proxy servers to get around the censorship. That is, you get onto a Web site that then lets you surf anonymously from that Web site. The censors see only the address of the proxy Web site, and not the addresses of the Web sites you’re going to from there. The censors do try to keep up with what proxies are out there, and block them as well. But it can’t get to all of them, so there’s always a way to access what you need, as long as you’re willing to be resourceful.
| “You’ve got to leave your assumptions and generalizations at the door, or be prepared to test them, rigorously, on a daily basis.” |
During the Olympics, the government was barraged with criticism for continuing to block sites like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, so it lifted those blocks even as it continued others. Many thousands of supposedly “sensitive” sites are blocked. The best way to deal with it is to circumvent it through a proxy server or something similar.
There’s also something of an attempted “Great Firewall” when it comes to satellite television. If a report or an image the censors don’t like comes up on CNN, or BBC, or even Discovery, viewers will suddenly find that their screens have gone black. And they’ll stay black for as long as the ‘offending’ part of the report is on. The funny part of this is, I have young Chinese friends who just buy their own black market satellite dish and watch whatever they like. It’s the foreigners in hotels and apartment blocks who see their screens go black. And since they have access to the information through other means anyway, the impact is not, as the Chinese government presumably hopes, that people retain a positive view of China, but that foreigners know what the Chinese government is feeling sensitive about and is too insecure to let people within China see.
Besides government censorship, what other challenges do you face in your reporting that are specific to China?
China is an extremely complex, multifaceted country, where some things change with lightening speed while others endure — often in surprising combinations. You’ve got to leave your assumptions and generalizations at the door, or be prepared to test them, rigorously, on a daily basis.
I spent two weeks in Beijing this February, and the city didn’t seem prepared to host the games six months later (lots of buildings in progress, including the Bird’s Nest, as well as heavy pollution). How well do you think Beijing pulled off the games, relative to its intended levels of success? Any telling anecdotes?
When China’s leaders throw their political will behind something, it generally gets done. You can question the way it gets done, the human cost of tearing down many neighborhoods and moving hundreds of thousands of people, the physical assaults on demonstrators and the journalists covering them during the Olympics, the fact that Beijing’s day-to-day pollution is so bad it took nothing less than taking half the cars off the roads and shutting down factories in and around the city to reduce the smog during the Olympics. But by the time the Olympics opened in August, the buildings were built, the red carpet was rolled out, and coaches and athletes and others involved in previous Olympics whom I interviewed said they were extremely impressed with the host’s level of organization and efficiency.
As I look out my window, while I’m typing this, I see that the smog has returned — there’s a gray haze making buildings just a couple of blocks away look out of focus. But Beijing never promised to permanently clean up its air. It just said it would deliver breathable air for the Olympics, and it did. Of course, as a Beijing resident (now also wondering how much melamine I’ve unwittingly ingested over the past few years) I really wish they would clean up the air — as do most Chinese I’ve talked to — but some of the same people are aghast at the idea that they should be part of the solution by leaving their cars at home and taking public transportation. This is one thing in China that’s not changing as quickly as it could.
In June, Madeleine Albright joked that China would win all the medals, because no one else would be able to breathe. As China did actually win more gold medals than any other country, do you think Beijing’s poor quality did actually give the home team an advantage?
Nah, although the Cambodian marathon runner did say that he trained by running on the streets of Phnom Penh, behind cars, so he could get used to exhaust fumes. I think there are a few reasons why Chinese athletes did so well. First, they trained extremely hard for years in state-run sports schools. Second, they had a home-court advantage, in that most of the fans in the stands were Chinese. Third, there were times when the announcers would let fans chatter and make noise while a non-Chinese athlete was competing in a sport that required concentration, but told fans to be quiet when the Chinese athletes took their turns. And fourth, there’s the still unanswered question about whether several of the Chinese female gymnasts who medalled were underage.
In China, do you find sources to be more tight-lipped, mistrusting of foreign press and/or afraid of government persecution?
As mentioned in an earlier answer, I think that used to be much more the case than it is now.
Greenpeace’s Olympic Report, issued early August 2008, says, “China has launched impressive green policies in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics but has also missed crucial opportunities to kick start ambitious environmental initiatives across the city.” As far as you can tell, are there plans to continue these initiatives, or were they temporary measures to prepare the city for the international spotlight?
China’s leaders have said repeatedly that it’s time to adopt a more environmentally-friendly approach to development. But old habits die hard, especially for local officials who personally profit from polluting industries, and whose promotions and raises depend in part on how much GDP growth their area has. The central government has said it will start judging local officials on “Green GDP growth” — in other words, subtracting the cost of environmental damage from total economic growth — but it’s not been very rigorous about putting this new policy into practice. It says these things take time, and that’s no doubt true. But a strong signal from the top could have a decisive effect on how local officials make decisions from here on out. We saw it during the SARS epidemic, and in the run-up to the Olympics. If the central government makes it clear that something is at the top of its list of priorities, the provinces generally fall in line.
Have you ever felt unsafe working as a foreign correspondent in China? As a female? Describe the situation when you felt least safe while reporting.
I personally have never felt physically threatened while working in China, and it’s generally quite safe to work and travel as a woman here. Some of my colleagues have been roughed up by plainclothes thugs when covering sensitive stories, sometimes even roughed up by uniformed security officials. Cameramen and photographers tend to have the hardest time, because they’re the ones who have to get closest. But reporters do occasionally get shoved around too.
How is your Mandarin? Do you conduct interviews in Mandarin, or in English through a translator? If you’re able to do both, how do you decide when to use a translator and when not to?
My Mandarin is conversational, and an enjoyable work in progress. When it comes to language, there are two kinds of foreign correspondents who come to China. The first did Chinese language and/or Chinese studies in college and/or studied Chinese intensively for a year or two in China before becoming a journalist here. The second — myself included — were journalists first, with no prior Chinese studies, and were given a limited time by one’s editors to come up to speed. In my case, NPR gave me one summer to learn Chinese. Even an intensive boot-camp program like Princeton in Beijing, which I did, that gives you a basic foundation, not fluency. The New York Times is the most generous — it gives a full year of language training — but that’s still only half the amount of time the State Department gives foreign service officers who are going to work in China. Those of us who didn’t start out as China scholars do what we can, taking lessons and practicing and building on what we have, but it takes time to reach true fluency. At this point, I can do my own interviews on simple subjects, but I use a translator for anything complicated or where a regional accent is involved. Even though I understand most or sometimes all of what’s being said, ‘close’ counts only in horseshoes, not in reporting. If I’m out talking to a farmer in Sichuan province, and then I get back to my office in Beijing and find that I seriously misunderstood some phrase he used, and that changed the meaning of an important point in a story, it’s not like I can go back and re-ask him. I need to get it right on the spot, where I can ask the right follow-up questions and do whatever additional reporting is needed.
Working overseas for a major news organization is a dream job for many journalists. Describe the best and worst things about your job.
It really is a dream job, working with the creative, cohesive, supportive team at “The World.” I have great freedom to report on one of the most interesting places in the world, and I get to indulge on a daily basis my long-standing loves of writing, travel and learning. To be in China at this historic moment, when the world’s political and economic center of gravity appears to be shifting East, but when it’s by no means clear how well China will be able to navigate its own internal challenges and contradictions, is a fascinating challenge and opportunity. The drama and complexity is played out in many an individual’s life, from a Tibetan nomad to a young dot-com multimillionaire. I talk to them, and get to know them, and tell their stories, and through their stories, tell the story of modern China. There’s many a day when this is so interesting and enjoyable, I kind of chuckle to myself and think, “Wow, I’m actually getting paid for doing this.”
The worst thing about the job? It’s got to be the late nights. Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Boston, where “The World” is based, 13 hours ahead once Daylight Savings Time ends. That means when my editors are in a position to edit my stories, it’s already 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. here, and I might end up working until midnight or after to get all the sound sent. Luckily, I’m more of a night owl than a morning person, but it would still be nice to have a few more evenings free after already working a full day. Still, it must be said, as ‘worst things’ about jobs go, this one is certainly manageable.
Do you pitch ideas to “The World,” or receive assignments? How does that process work, and what is the ratio of stories you do that are pitched versus assigned? How do you generate ideas for stories you pitch?
I pitch almost all of the stories I do. I’d say less than 10 percent of my stories start with suggestions from editors at “The World.” Mostly, they rely on me to come up with interesting, original and timely story ideas. To do that, I keep my eyes and ears open at all times. I read widely. I talk with Chinese friends and acquaintances. I use my own decade’s worth of experience in China to spot subtle new trends that could otherwise escape notice in day-to-day reporting.
One of the pleasures of reporting for “The World” is that we don’t do a lot of straight news along the lines of, “This is what happened today, this is what this person said.” By the time we go to air in the afternoon, NPR and the wire services have already done that. What we try to do is take a step back and say, “Okay, but what does it mean?” and “What are the ripple effects?” and “What else might we want to think about related to this story?” Sometimes, such stories are turned around on the same day, and sometimes, a news event one day might spark an idea for a longer analysis or feature piece or even a series down the line. For instance, early this year, I read a short news piece in a Chinese newspaper about how the percentage of Chinese living in cities had increased from something like 20 percent three decades ago to close to 50 percent now. That dramatic population shift has a massive impact on the economy, the environment, on culture and on politics. It’s a shift Europe experienced in the 19th century, and the United States in the 20th. From mulling over that small newspaper article, I decided to do a six-part series, which aired in July (and is still available as a podcast) on how the urbanization experience is affecting China, and how that in turn could affect the world.
What is the best way for an unknown writer to get an assignment doing foreign reporting (at “The World” or in general)? How did you land your first non-U.S. assignment?
What I tell young aspiring freelance foreign correspondents is to put themselves in a situation that is inherently interesting, but not so interesting that major news organizations have already put their own staff correspondents there. There are freelancers here in China who are trying to break in but are having a hard time, because there are already hundreds of staff foreign correspondents based in China. Freelancers might do better, at this point, in Seoul, or Islamabad or Jakarta.
I started as a freelance foreign correspondent in Bangkok in 1988. Before that, I’d been living in London, and did a few reporting trips, to places like Ethiopia, the Western Sahara, Bangladesh and Cambodia. For the first couple such trips, I paid my own expenses and just about broke even, by offering articles to newspapers, magazines and radio outlets. It turned out to be worth the investment — because this gave me valuable experience, decent clips, and the beginnings of working relationships with a number of editors. By the time I moved to Bangkok, the Boston Globe agreed to take me on as a stringer, and gave me a letter to get me accredited in Thailand. The Globe already had a staff correspondent in Tokyo, but he was covering a huge area, including Afghanistan, and wasn’t able to get to Southeast Asia often. Still, there were interesting things happening. The Burmese junta had just cracked down, and killed a couple thousand pro-democracy demonstrators, prompting thousands more to flee as refugees to the Thai-Burma border, Vietnamese troops were still occupying Cambodia, where a war with the Khmer Rouge continued, and hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees were parked in camps on the Cambodian-Thai border. Thailand was just beginning its fight with AIDS, and the US-Vietnamese relations remained frosty, but with signs of thawing. I ended up doing all these stories and more, and had a great time doing them. Once editors saw the stories I was doing for The Boston Globe, I also became a stringer for The Washington Post, NPR, CBC in Canada and other outlets, until NPR eventually offered me a full-time position.
| “It’s more important than ever that Americans develop a better understanding of the world and their place in it. As long as I, as a foreign correspondent, can help in that process, that’s what I want to do.” |
The key point here is, I set myself up in a place from which there was demand for stories, but not many correspondents supplying them. Also — and this is important for a freelancer just starting out – living expenses were low enough that I could afford a start-up period of a few months when I wasn’t flush. If you’re going to do this, try to have three to six months worth of savings to get you over that initial hump.
Many newspapers and other media organizations are now reducing the number of staff foreign correspondents they have overseas, and this actually opens up opportunities for aspiring freelancers. Just think strategically about where to base yourself, and plunge in.
Would you report in the States again, or elsewhere? Or is it Beijing or Bust, so to speak? Why?
I’ve never actually reported in the United States, except on internships when I was a journalism/history student at Northwestern University. I went to the UK to do my MA in international relations, and stayed overseas from that point onward, aside from a couple of fellowships at Harvard. I’ve reported from dozens of countries, primarily in Asia but also in Africa and Europe, so it’s by no means Beijing or Bust. I just happen to think that China is one of the world’s most interesting stories at the moment, and I’m enjoying the ride. When that’s no longer the case, or when another story seems even more interesting to me, I’ll make the change. Might it be to the United States? At some point, sure. But for now, I think it’s more important than ever that Americans develop a better understanding of the world and their place in it, and of how others in the world see them. As long as I, as a foreign correspondent, can in some small way help in that process, that’s what I want to do.
Any advice for aspiring foreign correspondents, or ones who are just starting their careers?
Tenacity is a virtue. So is patience. It takes time to build up your credibility, and your expertise as a foreign correspondent. And to do that, there’s no substitute for getting out in the field and doing your own hard work. Don’t try to match what everyone else is doing. Look for stories that should be done, but that others aren’t doing. Those are the stories that, if done well, will catch an editor’s attention and make him or her receptive to using more of your work. Editors get calls from would-be freelancers all the time. What will set you apart is that you show an editor, over time, that s/he can trust you and your reporting, that you’re reliable, that you work hard and report rigorously, and that your stories show creativity and depth. Those are also the qualities that will eventually get a freelancer hired.
Professionally, what do you hope to do next?
I especially enjoy doing longer projects, including the number of radio series I’ve done for “The World,” on subjects ranging from how China’s younger generation is changing China to how China’s rise is affecting traditional US allies in the region. I look forward to doing more such projects, in China and in the region. Casting forward beyond that — possibilities abound. But no rush; I already have one of the best jobs in journalism.
Magistad’s Tips For Aspiring Foreign Correspondents.
1. Don’t follow the crowd. Put yourself in a situation that is inherently interesting, but not so interesting that major news organizations have already put their own staff correspondents there.
2. Just go. Many newspapers and other media organizations are now reducing the number of staff foreign correspondents they have overseas, and this actually opens up opportunities for aspiring freelancers. Just think strategically about where to base yourself, and plunge in.
3. Be patient. Tenacity is a virtue. So is patience. It takes time to build up your credibility, and your expertise as a foreign correspondent. And to do that, there’s no substitute for getting out in the field and doing your own hard work.
4. Look for the stories that haven’t yet been told. “Don’t try to match what everyone else is doing. Look for stories that should be done, but that others aren’t doing. Those are the stories that, if done well, will catch an editor’s attention and make him or her receptive to using more of your work.”
5. Show an editor s/he can trust you. Editors get calls from would-be freelancers all the time. What will set you apart is that you show an editor, over time, that s/he can trust you and your reporting, that you’re reliable, that you work hard and report rigorously, and that your stories show creativity and depth. Those are also the qualities that will eventually get a freelancer hired.
Jen Swanson is a freelance writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, Weissmann Travel Reports, and Star Service Online.
