By Kejin Qian
Editor/writer, Yangcheng Evening News
Guangzhou, China
Hosted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

To be a journalist in China can be very difficult, or it can be easy, depending on how you do the job. As a writer and a sub-editor of a major daily newspaper in Guangzhou, I know this very well.

But how about being a journalist of a prestigious newspaper in America, like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, even just for five months? My simple answer is, not so easy, not so hard. Not easy because you have to be very professional to meet the high standards of journalism here. Not so hard because you can do a great and meaningful job under the protection of the First Amendment.

The people with whom I worked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette made themselves models for me in terms of matching those high standards, even if they did not realize they were doing so.

They were never satisfied with information from only one or two sources. It seems that some of the reporters have endless lists of people they will interview, and they are fond of asking them questions. To write a story about a disease that could be contracted in hospitals, one reporter interviewed dozens of patients from different hospitals, the officers and doctors from different hospitals and medical organizations, the officials of the city and the county health department, and the experts from CDC. You can imagine that somewhere else, a reporter wouldn’t need 20 plus interviews and two weeks to do such a story. But if you want to be a professional journalist, you have to do this, and you should do this multisided, comprehensive, clear story for the readers.

Journalists here also seem very patient about some stories. In order to write one story about an old lady who runs a restaurant for more than half a century, the reporter drove to her restaurant many times. Talking to the little eccentric lady who doesn’t like anyone to enter her kitchen, observing every detail, including old pictures, the old words carved on tables by the guests, taking these into his notebooks. Actually, you can take a few interviews on the phone and take one or two pictures to do a profile story. But if you like to do journalism professionally, you’d better take the time to observe the scene personally as the reporter of the Post-Gazette is doing.

It also seems that some journalists here are quite aggressive. When the Pennsylvania legislation passed a bill to raise their salary, the reporters not only followed what happened in Harrisburg, the state capital, they also let the citizens know how every representative voted, who planned to take the added salary and what they would use the money for. Columnists wrote very pointed articles, telling people how to analyze the situation and why the bill was “shameless”. When I asked if these stories would make a difference and affect the decisions of those representatives, I was told that the voters and organizations could make a difference in next election. This makes me know how journalism here works as a watchdog, a regular way different from that in the issue of Deep Throat.

The above cases are part of what I learned here. I was also trying to use my time here as a precious chance to practice real journalism like my colleagues. When I wrote different stories about the volunteers, students, businessmen, a historic veteran and even some travel stories, I always kept in my mind principles such as accuracy, going to the scene in person as much as possible, don’t be satisfied with a single source, and so on. I have to say after applying the principles I learned here, I did something better than what I have done back in Guangzhou, China.

After this fruitful trip, I am confident that I have plenty of things to share with my colleagues at the Yangcheng Evening News and my other journalist friends across China.

I will tell them that even though we have very different conditions to do journalism in China from those in America, we can learn much from American journalism. We share something universal with our counterparts in America.

We have to pay more attention to the opinions from multiple sides rather than just one. We have to pay more attention to accuracy and double-check, to be independent as much as possible, to give attribution as much as possible and so on.

I want to tell my friends, as journalists we should not take anything for granted. We also should not take any gifts or free meals when we are doing our job. We should not forget that one basic role of journalism is being a watchdog, the watchdog for the society.

After going back to China, I want to tell some top editors and bosses of newspapers that the big names like The New York Times and The Washington Post are great newspapers and we can learn something from them. But we must also turn our eyes to the newspapers like the Post-Gazette. They can teach us how to do the things such as keep close contact with the community, keep eyes on the regular citizens around the area, and check the deeds of the local government. They also teach us how to provide comprehensive information, including what is going on in the whole world, to readers. That is the job of a good newspaper that we could be.

An important point: thanks to AFPF and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for giving me such a wonderful chance!