WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A FOREIGN JOURNALIST IN CHINA? MICRO-DOCUMENTARIES OF CHINA-BASED JOURNALISTS ________________________________________________________________ University of Missouri School of Journalism ________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Journalism ________________________________________________________________ By DANDAN ZOU Stacey Woelfel, Project Chair Associate Professor | Director, Murray Center for Documentary Journalism David Rees Professor | Chair, Photojournalism Faculty Steve Rice Assistant Professor | Convergence Journalism DECEMBER 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………..……… iii KEY WORDS.……………………………………………..….…………………….……iv Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION..…………………………………...……………………..…….1 2. WEEKLY REPORTS …………………………………………...……...…………4 3. EVALUATION…………………………………………………………..………43 4. DESCRIPTION OF MICRO-DOCUMENTARIES…………………..….………51 5. PROFESSIONAL ANALYSIS……………………………………….….………55 APPENDIX A. ORIGINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL………………………………….…………68 B. INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS…………………………………......……………97 ii WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A FOREIGN JOURNALIST IN CHINA? MICRO-DOCUMENTARIES OF CHINA-BASED JOURNALISTS Dandan Zou Stacey Woelfel, Project Committee Chair ABSTRACT What it is like to be a foreign journalist in China? This is the central question this project tries to answer. Through three micro-documentaries and eight in-depth interviews, this project tries to get a glimpse of foreign journalists’ lives reporting and living in China. Journalists speak of industry cutback, censorship and technology and their impact on working journalists in China as well as around the world. The lessons journalists learned about life and the practice of journalism inform readers and future international correspondents the challenges of international reporting. iii KEY WORDS China-based, Foreign Journalists, International Reporting, Censorship, Journalism Ethics, Industry Cutback iv Chapter One: Introduction “From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer.” This is the first sentence George Orwell wrote in his essay “Why I Write.” And this sentence applies to my life just as accurately. I came to the Missouri School of Journalism with one ambition: to become a writer. I had never thought of devoting my career into filmmaking. First, I had no experience with a DSLR until a year ago when I took Fundamentals of Photography. Second, I thought filmmaking was a profession for the Chinese rich whose financial resources allow them to invest a large amount of money in gear and film production. The idea of becoming a visual journalist simply never registered in my mind. However, the idea to do a video project did not come out of the blue. Films have been my passion since the day I watched my first film in the dark theater with my classmates one Friday afternoon in elementary school. The films I have watched define who I am and what I believe in. Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin” made me realize films are not movies that we watch to kill time with baskets of popcorn. Film is the most manipulating, persuasive art that challenges our core values in no more than three hours (most of the time). Buñuel’s “An Andalusian Dog” comes to mind as one example. I still remember the impulse to turn my eyes away from the screen when seeing the blade slide across the actress’ eyeball and my resentment of watching a film named after a dog without seeing any sign of a dog! I was angry and felt violated. I was determined to attack the film director if I ever see him for presenting me a film that does not make any sense! But I think I will end up hugging him after the initial attack for forcing me to be in touch with my subconscious emotions. I will tell him I felt vulnerable and insecure in that 1 moment and I circled my arms around my body to make myself feel less lonely. I also want to thank him for forcing me to feel my own existence and the excitement to be alive. I had thought of becoming a film critic someday. I was 24 at the time and believed it was too late for me to have anything to do with filmmaking. I needed to think pragmatically in terms of how to make a living. I tried the Fundamentals of Photography class out of my intention to locate a better job after graduation. I was told reporters are expected to take photos and videos these days. So I set out to prepare myself to be a more hirable writer. And this is what I will forever be grateful for my journalism school education: it made me believe I am capable of anything I aspire to do. My Chinese upbringing has taught me to be realistic and calculating in every step I make. What do I benefit from doing this? What is the investment and return? The first thing I did after thinking of making a series of micro-docs is to call my friend Shelly Yang, who was a year senior than me and was about to finish her own micro-doc project. I asked her if she thought I was wasting my time thinking about producing something I had no experience in. I expected her or someone else to tell me to reconsider this idea because I had no experience in making videos. I took one class and made two awful micro-docs. That was it. I was hoping to hear someone telling me I am chewing something too big to bite. Then I will go back to my original plan and happily start research narrative writing, a project that has been done repeatedly in the past few years. What I heard was all encouragement. The school environment is too nurturing to let me say “no” to myself. I made my decision to make micro-docs before I knew my topic. But the topic came easily. With no exaggeration, I was struggling the first day I came to the U.S. I had a clear goal, which was to get my education in journalism. But I was struggling to make 2 sense of my experience as a Chinese living abroad. My first four months at MSJ was mostly spent in Missourian’s newsroom. My language could not keep up with my thoughts and my ignorance of literally everything makes it extremely difficult for me to report in a highly competitive newsroom. What hurts me the most is I did not know how to write. How was I supposed to become a writer if I could not even write one coherent sentence without thinking twice? It was a huge blow to my self-esteem, and I lost confidence. I started to question my ability to make a living as a journalist. Once I sat on the curvy bench in RJI right by the café and had an anxiety attack. My mind went black, and I lost track of why I was there. One of my favorite writers, Milan Kundera, once wrote something like living abroad is like walking on cotton candy. It feels unreal. Do other people feel the same way I do or totally different? I wanted to know their experiences of living abroad. The news I consume most is Western coverage of China. It was a natural question to ask how are these articles and videos I consumed produced? How does someone report in a country like China where I lived for 21 years? I still want to be a writer. I also want to be a documentary filmmaker someday. This project has prepared me the skills and techniques to shoot and edit videos, but also equipped me with the life lesson that will serve me my whole life. 3 Chapter Two: Weekly Reports My project can be divided into three phases. The first one is building contact, which is between the end of May to the end of June. The second one is shooting, which lasted till early September. The last one is the post-production from September to early November. Weekly Report One: May 31, 2014 I can’t remember the details. But the skeleton of the story goes like this. A reporter in Orlando, Fla., took on a project to find stories not related to Disney World. Later, he received awards for his project that turned out to be a big success. One reporter asked him what was the most difficult part of the project. His answer was to get out of the car. I once asked David Barboza things he disliked about being a journalist. He answered: “torturous writing, long hours and begging people for interviews.” Asking people for favors is never my favorite part of journalism, and it turned out to take more mental energy than I anticipated. I can’t remember how many emails I have sent out this week alone asking for favors. I’ve sent emails to U.S. journalists living in China or elsewhere, asking if they would be interested in working with me on my project, or if they know anyone who might be a good fit for my project. I’ve sent emails to organizations such as the Foreign Correspondents Club located in Beijing to ask for directions. They answered they would include my request in their weekly email to their members. And that’s almost the best email I’ve received so far. 4 Each morning, I wake up and start searching the Internet to look for possible subjects. For the past week, what I did was look through ChinaFile’s 11 contributors pages, reading all the bios and emailing those who I think would be a good fit for my project. Most journalists didn’t reply. One photographer replied but said he’s not conformable being filmed. I started to dread the process and had to make it an assignment to force myself to find at least one potential subject a day.