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. Last week, Scott Adams posted an eye-opening piece in his Dilbert Blog, “Today I Will Improve Your Sex Life.” (My sex life hasn’t improved — it’s as bad as when I was still married! – but I’ve got high hopes). But the more important part of the post was about how to sell yourself. He suggested reading a book called “Influence” by Robert B. Cialdini. I saw a single copy of the book on a shelf at Chaterhouse this weekend, and grabbed it up. Chaterhouse is Shanghai’s only half-decent English-language bookstore, with a weirdly-spelled name and the world’s most annoying website. But I digress. Apparently, Cialdini’s book is something of … Read entire article »

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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. From reading my post yesterday, I guess some people got the idea that it’s all bad news for journos looking for overseas assignments. (Yes, I mean you, Fons — http://www.chinaherald.net/2007/03/how-to-become-foreign-correspondent.html.) That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all. It takes some work to get there, but if you put in that work — improving skills, connections, and persistence — you can get here. Yes, the “brand name” foreign journalism positions are getting scarce, but the total number of opportunities available are growing, I believe. There are the trade mags, the newsletters, the online sites. Here are a few possible paths: * Start covering your foreign … Read entire article »

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. Robert Near is trying to break into journalism in Shanghai. In a recent posting, he writes that my account of the difficulties of getting started resonates with him. He teaches English, he copyedits, and he writes lifestyle pieces for magazines both in Shanghai and back home in Canada. He talks quite a bit about the music scene here. As a foreigner in China, you can lead a pretty glamorous life if you want. A couple of years ago, my then-husband and I and our kids were extras in the White Countess, and spent a day sailing on a boat with Natasha Richardson and Ralph Fiennes. Last week, I got … Read entire article »

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). Dan Kubiske, chair of the SPJ’s International Journalism Committee, suggested that I blog about my experiences running a bureau out here in Shanghai, so this is it. Some background — I came to China three years ago, to run the China bureau for Securities Industry News (a weekly New York City financial newspaper). The work has since expanded to include several other SourceMedia publications, including CardLine Asia-Pacific, where my staff and I cover payments throughout the entire Asian region. It started out as a one-man bureau run out of my apartment in downtown Shanghai. Last year, we rented an office not too far away (okay, two blocks … Read entire article »

Most countries — including China — require that journalists be accredited, and carry a press ID. This is not the case in the United States, where our Constitution guarantees press freedom from government interference. In the US, all a journalist needs is a business card or a company photo ID. For most of the reporting I do, all I need is a telephone — I haven’t yet had anyone not believe I was who I said I was. When I go out to interviews, I bring my business cards. They suffice for 95% of the stuff out there. Some publications and TV stations issue photo IDs to their employees. They can also be used for identification. For special events, etc… I write an assignment letter on company letterhead for my editor … Read entire article »

A beginning journalist asked: It looks like you have a lot of varied experience in journalism. I’m dabbling with becoming a business reporter, but also love narrative writing: i.e. Rick Bragg, Tom French, Tom Hallman. Do you have any advice on the pros and cons of covering business than say education or government reporting? First of all, when I was first starting out, I would not have voluntarily picked either business, education or government reporting. I got into this business to be Ernest Hemingway, and that meant going out to war zones, which I did. I wrote about business, education and government until then, at the Chicago Tribune, but it bored me senseless. Then I had to retire from the fun stuff, and started looking around for a second-choice beat. My criteria was pretty … Read entire article »

My rule of thumb is you’re as good a writer as your last clip. So find an editor, any editor, and start pitching business stories. If you’re really starting out, and don’t have *any* clips at all, go after the Pennysavers and the like — do some profiles of local businesses. The pay is pennies per word. But write the stories well and you’ve got yourself a clip. Then you try local weeklies, regional business pubs, suburban dailies, trades, big city dailies, then national business mags, in that order. Get a frank assessment from somebody cruel as to where you are on that foodchain, based on your writing and reporting ability. Then call the editor you want to write for, and ask for a few minutes to come in and show him/her … Read entire article »

Going overseas definitely gave my career a big jump start — I went from covering local school board meetings in the Chicago suburbs to covering international conflicts within a few months. This was in Moscow, where there were, at the time, two competing English language dailies. One friend came to Moscow straight out of college, without a word of Russian. He did have a textbook that he picked up somewhere, though. He got a job at the Moscow Tribune helping the wire editor, looking for interesting stories in the mountain of paper the AP — and UPI, Reuters, Itar-Tass, and all the other wires we subscribed to — spewed out every day. After an exciting day of battling paper cuts, he would retire down to some Russian bar, get a newspaper and … Read entire article »

Jonathan Schwartz is President and Chief Operating Officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. He answered some questions for me for a story on blogging, but only a few words made it into the final article (due out in print next week). Question: What value can an employee’s blog offer to an enterprise? Schwartz: Sun serves such a fantastically diverse set of constituents – from 12 year old girls downloading games on Vodafone Live!’s new gaming service, to Wall Street technologists, to CIO’s at large retailers, to mobile developers in the medical community to journalists we try to keep apprised of our strategies and perspectives – that having one person, or one ad campaign, can’t possibly serve our needs. Blogs, on the other hand, give us phenomenal reach, and a very efficient communications vehicle … Read entire article »