Journalism

Description vs. prescription

I love the fact that there are always two kids of everything in the world… the binary system is so neat and orderly. There are two kinds of grammarians: the prescriptivists and the descriptivists. The prescriptivists lay down the rules, then want other people to follow them. When someone splits an infinitive, for example, or

Description vs. prescription Read More »

Journalism vs. PR

Just came back from a nice lunch at KABB, in Shanghai’s people-watching mecca Xintiandi. Hose Mitamura (author of China s Environment 2008, available from Amazon) and I discussed the differences between journalism and PR. As my staff constantly reminds me, I tend to believe passionately in whatever I heard most recently. In my case, this

Journalism vs. PR Read More »

How to avoid paying bribes

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. At lunch today I had a nice chat with a lawyer friend about paying bribes. Now, I’m not about to comment on this issue in China (except to say that, for

How to avoid paying bribes Read More »

You don’t need to fly around the world to edit for a China pub, or, Reverse outsourcing

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 There is a shortage of English-language writers and copyeditors in China. Especially experienced ones. The reason is that expats typically don’t stay in China for a long time – it’s stressful.

You don’t need to fly around the world to edit for a China pub, or, Reverse outsourcing Read More »

Looking back on the biggest mistakes of my career: Bad record-keeping

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. Since I’m in the process of easing out of being a journalist, and easing into being a business owner, and this is a blog about international journalism, not about entrepreneurship, I’m

Looking back on the biggest mistakes of my career: Bad record-keeping Read More »

Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club holds elections

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. Here is our new slate of leaders at the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club: President: Duncan Hewitt (Newsweek)Vice-President, Events: Ola Wong (Sydsvenska Dagbladet)Vice-President, Membership: Astrid Freyeisen (ARD German Radio)Media Representative: Rebecca Catching

Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club holds elections Read More »