A weekly discussion of current affairs in China with journalists, writers, academics, policymakers, business people and anyone with something compelling to say about the country that's reshaping the world. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo.
https://art19.com/shows/sinica
Legendary CNN reporter Mike Chinoy on his book and documentary series "Assignment China"
This week on the Sinica Podcast, Jeremy and I chat with Mike Chinoy, the legendary award-winning TV newsman who helmed CNN in Beijing for many critical years. Mike talks about the video documentary series and accompanying book Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People’s Republic, for which he interviewed about 130 journalists whose careers spanned an 80-year period, from the 1940s to the present.
04:08 – The genesis of the Assignment China project
11:15 – Editorial decisions: What was included, and what wasn’t
16:13 – The big takeaways for Mike on finishing this project
25:13 – The role of contingency and the observer effect
32:52 – How Tiananmen really made CNN and changed the future of cable news
36:30 – Tough ethical calls in the reporting of China
42:42 – Structural biases in American reporting on China…
50:50 – …and what news consumers can do to adjust for those baked-in biases
52:54 – Does where the reporters are actually determine what the story is?
1:02:17 – What went wrong with TV news?
A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
Mike: Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai by Matti Friedman
Jeremy: From the Jewish Provinces: Selected Stories by Fradl Shtok, translated by Jordan Finkin and Allison Schachter
Kaiser: Father's Laszlo Ladany's "Ten Commandments" on China-watching, and playing around with ChatGPT 4
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