Tag: Media

  • Reading SCMP for free, on the iPad

    The South China Morning Post is one of the best reads in English on East Asian news. Based in Hong Kong, it is a full-blown operation with reporters all over China. Its content is, however, trapped behind a paywall on its own website. Strangely, the iPad app “SCMP” has what I’m pretty sure is the…

  • A reasoned response to China hysteria

    Nina Hachigian, a former National Security Council adviser during the late ’90s, writes a conspicuously reasonable-sounding response to the U.S. media’s increasingly alarmist reporting on the United States–China relationship. The early stages of the U.S.-China relationship during the Obama administration have not played out according to the usual script. The president did not promise on the…

  • Olympics Journalists Say More About Their Home Country Than the Host

    What have the Olympic Games done to affect the world’s discussions about China? Perhaps, very little. Instead of delving into the diversity and complexity of “China,” journalists focused on sports, especially the journalists’ home team. Cultural reporting, too, reflected the journalists’ national identities. John Burns, a veteran foreign correspondent for The New York Times remembers…

  • Foreign Reporters and Scoripions at Beijing's Wangfujing

    Many people from outside China marvel at what Chinese eat—or, more accurately, what you can order at tourist locations. At Wangfujing’s Snack Street in Beijing, you can order a scorpion skewer. Jim Boyce, Beijing’s leading nightlife blogger, has been tracking media mentions in horror. The truth, of course, is that virtually no one eats scorpion…

  • Online Voices Aren't Everything in China

    In the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, which began Friday, English language media have published countless stories on China and its capital. But many of these stories echo each other and few break new ground in the world’s understanding of China. Many emphasize a consistent set of outside concerns and, in portraying conflict,…