Hiring American reporters versus Chinese and Indian

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).

I've managed journalists from pretty much everywhere -- the US, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Central Asia, and, now, India and China.

In my experience, the differences between individual reporters far outweight the differences between countries. In otherwords, I've worked with some really really bad American writers, and some really good Chinese ones - and vice versa.

But there are some general differences.

WRITING ABILITY

Sometimes -- but not always -- the American writers have more experience with business reporting, or, at least, know what a news story is supposed to look like as a result of having seen a lot of them.

The only difference I can actually point to is in writing style -- native English speakers produce stories that are more readable and more grammatically correct than non-native speakers.

In the first category I would put the Ameicans, the Canadians, the Indians, and (yeah, okay) the Brits (funny spelling be damned).

In the second are the Russians and the Chinese and the assorted Europeans.

JOB SKILLS

The more experienced someone is, and the more jobs they've held before, the happier, in general, I'm going to be with their work.

In the United States, kids get their first jobs at 12 (paper routes) or 14 (other jobs). They have part-time jobs through high school, to get money for junk food or clothes, to save up for college, or to buy a car. During college, US students hold work study jobs during the school year and full-time internships during the summers.

By the time and American graduates from college they'll have held at least two jobs -- often many many more, if you add in temp jobs.

I probably held a couple of dozen jobs by the time I graduated from college. I would sign up with temp agencies during short breaks or between other jobs, and did something different every semester and every summer. That adds up quickly. I've worked as a programmer, as a teacher, as waitress, as a circus roustabout, as an envelope stuffer, as a typesetter, as a receptionist, as a bear, as a book editor, as a newsletter editor, and, of course, as a newspaper reporter.

Then there's the volunteer work for my high school paper and for the literary journal.

I don't list all these jobs on my resume -- I don't want people to think I'm a total nutjob. But I'm probably typical. After all, young people don't know what they want to do, they change their minds, they have dramatic episodes and quit perfectly good jobs, they run away and join the circus, and so on.

But after you go through all this, you pretty much know what you want to do. And you know what you have to put up with in order to be able to do it. You know how long it takes you to do things. You know which jobs you shouldn't take, and you know the conditions under which you just cannot work.

By comparison, I've had several employees who had never held a job at all before coming to me. And they weren't all Chinese, but most were.

They didn't know what they wanted to do. How they worked. They didn't know what kind of behavior was expected, and what was inappropriate.

One assistant answered the phone by telling the caller that I was in the bathroom. Then didn't take a message. My employees routinely take off without warning -- then reappear again, just as mysteriously. They have problems with girlfriends and boyfriends, problems with coming to work on time, problems meeting deadlines, and problems scheduling their work.

But it's not clear-cut. Three of my freelance writers are middle-aged American men who still don't know what they want to do with their lives. All three are veteran journalists with impressive resumes, but still have problems with deadlines, scheduling, and organization. (If you're reading this and think I'm writing about you -- it's not. It's somebody else.)

So you can't make assumptions. You can't say: "I'll only hire Americans because they do a good job." Or: "Chinese employees don't know how to act in a workplace."

Some of my Chinese hires, with no previous experience at all, have taken to their jobs easily and quickly, working independently and aggressively.

So it's all down to individual people. As is everything.

ATTRITION

The biggest difference between expat and local hires, in my opinion, is attrition rates. In Shanghai, turnover is high for every nationality, every job category, every company. For expat hires, however, the problems are magnified significantly.

By definition, expats in Shanghai aren't at home -- and eventually, they'll want to go home, for the sake of theirkids, spouses, parents, or just basic home-sickness. There are some permanent expats, but they're few on the ground -- especially in Shanghai, which is not exactly the most livable fo cities.

Expats also have more opportunities. On principle, everyone I hire is part of the same wage structure -- their salaries are based on their value to the company. This means that, for the most part, I pay expat employees the same as Indian and Chinese employees.

Many foreign companies, however, pay expat employees American salaries (plus expat packages, in some cases).

As my company grows and I need more and more senior and experienced people, I expect our salaries to rise as well. But I expect that, for expat hires, my company will be a training ground rather than a destination for quite a long time.

By comparison, for local salaries, our company's wages are pretty competitive. Combine that with a decent working environment, flexible hours, bylines in American magazines, and the work looks pretty good for the long term.

I have some Chinese employees who have been with the company for a while and I expect that some of them will stay for a long time. They represent the company's institutional memory and our work ethic and culture. They are the heart of the company and I hope to see their numbers increase with time.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

I'm not the only one looking to hire from India

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.

The AP ran this story yesterday -- Calif. Web site outsources reporting -- about a California online newspaper hiring reporters in India to cover local news in Pasadena.

Here's a writeup of the story from Journalism.co.uk: Local news reporting outsourced to India.

Blogger Billy Dennis at Peoria Pundits says this is a "sign of the apocalypse."

As usual, I'm divided on the issue. On the one hand, as an American journalist, I know that the employment situation in the US is already bad enough for reporters. This isn't going to make things any better.

But, on the other hand, too much reporting in the US is already done by telephone and email, by new kids fresh out of college who don't know much about the communities they cover.

So why not give the jobs to kids in India? They'll work harder, for less money, appreciate the jobs more, and stay longer -- maybe even long enough to get to know the community (at least, in a remote and virtual way). They probably need the jobs more than we do, too, supporting a large extended family, often sending money to rural areas where people still live a subsistence life and those meager dollars can lift a family out of poverty, send young siblings to college, keep an elderly parent healthy and fed.

(I just returned from a trip to India, where I visited one of these villages after touring a bunch of tech outsourcing companies.Whoa.)

And it's not that we don't have jobs in the US. We have plenty of jobs -- just not the jobs that we journalists may want. Despite all the outsourcing, the employment rate in the US stays low. Our economy is chugging along. (And, I expect, will for a long time.)

But I'm an optimist. And, also, I'm an immigrant. I don't see any moral superiority in keeping jobs in the US.

For those who do, I say: get out of the office. Meet your readers and your sources in person. Turn your job into one that can't be outsourced to someone on the other side of the planet.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

If you're looking for a job, please don't ask me for an 'informational interview'

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.

I interviewed a man for a job today who was Canadian-born Chinese, with decent Chinese skills and some decent journalism experience for city magazines here in China, and a business degree as well.

A perfect candidate -- employers should be falling all over themselves to offer him jobs.

But it took me a while to figure out he was job hunting - in his initial contact with me, he kind of beat around the bush and said he was just calling for "information."

Apparently, someone gave him some bad advice about setting up informational interviews.

Now, I have nothing against informational interviews. If someone calls me up because they want to know what a job in journalism is like, no problem. I'll take time to talk to them.

And if someone wants to interview me about my company -- sure, I could use some press.

And I love job seekers. Here in Shanghai, turnover is the single biggest problem for every manager and we're all recruiting, all the time. I never pass up a chance to meet with a job seeker, unless they're completely and obviously wrong for the job (say, a conflict of interest) in which case I steer them in some other direction.

But someone who beats around the bush -- that doesn't make me happy. It feels like they're wasting my time. I found out that this guy was job hunting pretty quickly, though, when he sent me his resume -- and I immediately invited him over for lunch.

But another person called yesterday requesting an "informational interview about my company." What the hell is that? Did she want to profile us for a story? No. did she want to know what it was like to work as a journalist? Probably not. She introduced herself as a working journalist. Was she looking for a job? I asked her right out, and she said no.

Was she too shy to say she was job hunting? Well, the last thing I need in my office is shy reporters.

Come on, guys. I'm hiring. Everyone in Shanghai is hiring. And if they're not, they'll be hiring in a month, when all their current staffers quit. We're seeing astronomical growth rates here.

If you're looking for a job, say so. I'm happy to hear from you. I'll even buy you lunch, or take you out for drinks. Seriously. And if you're good and you're willing to work cheap, I'll find something for you to do even if I don't happen to have a job opening right this moment. (Who wouldn't?)

I don't mind if you only stay for a short time -- I've gotten used to the turnover issues. It's just a fact of life in Shanghai.

So a few people have been using my company to find out whether they want to be journalists or not, or to learn how to write business stories for US publications before striking off on their own. That's fine. A couple of people have gone on to PR, and another is planning to. That's fine, too.

My basic point is that you don't have to lie to me when looking for a job. If you are a reasonable fit for the work -- if you'll do a good job for me at a pay rate that makes you good for the company, then I'll hire you.

My personal philosophy is that if you can't be honest with a future boss, then you're probably not going to be happy working for them.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Why I love IDG

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.

The great thing about journalism is that I get to tell the truth. I regularly tell people who don't believe me about instances when editors backed me up, even if it meant upsetting a source or advertiser. I haven't had a single story spiked due to advertising pressures in all my years as a reporter.

I like to think that this is because I've worked for some pretty good publications.

One example is this week's brou-ha-ha at PCWorld, another IDG pub. The editor in chief wanted to run a column unflattering to an advertiser (Apple). The CEO of the company didn't. When push came to shove, the editor stood his ground, and the CEO got the boot.

Disclaimer: I worked at IDG's Computerworld for a year at the turn of the century, and have done some occasional writing for several IDG publications since then (and still do).

Here's a nice overview from CNET.

Here's the online discussion board at PC World, where readers wrote in horrified about the firing.

Here is PCWorld's own story, and here's the story that caused the flap to begin with: 10 Things We Hate About Apple.

It's things like this that make me very, very happy to be a journalist.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Fake Chinese reporter makes $500,000 from bribes -- and gets life

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.

The Associated Press ran an interesting story yesterday about a Chinese crook who passed himself off as a reporter or editor from the People's Daily. Usually these kinds of bribes are for running favorable stories, or not running stories that are not so favorable.

In this case, though, the guy said that he could use his influence with top officials -- the People's Daily is the main publication of the Communist Party of China -- to get people promotions.

But what I would like to see is the names of the people who tried to bribe this guy. Will they be seeing any jail time?

I would also want to know how he got caught. Did people complain? Did they call the newspaper to check whether he was a real reporter? Or did they get suspicous when their promotions didn't come thorugh?

I'm also surprised he kept going. You would think it would be easy to get lost in China -- 1.3 billion people, all of them surnamed Wang or Chen. With half a million US dollars, that's a lot of fake identity papers you could buy.

The guy must have been really good to pull in this much money, too. I wonder how many other fake reporters are out there, pulling in the big bucks with these kind of scams.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Journalism career planning: moving from editorial to publishing

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).

There are three possible stages in a journalist's career, and each transition is very painful and difficult.

The first stage is that of the reporter. You are responsible for your own work, and nobody else's. Occasionally you work as part of a team, or use a researcher or other assistant. But you're most often on your own. The goal is to report and write the best possible story within the constraints of your publication's editorial guidelines.

If you stay a reporter, your career moves include switching to a better beat, or moving to a larger media outlet. You can also write books, give speeches, or appear as a guest on television programs.

Except for the rare star, your salary options are pretty limited.

Those who become frustrated with not being able to achieve the status they're looking for, or get tired of the stress or not making enough money to live on, often switch to public relations or teching.

The next stage is editing.

Editors move from copy editing, to editing specific sections, to being managing editor, then to editor in chief. Editors can also move from smaller markets to larger or more prestigious or better-paying ones.

Except for copy editing, these are mostly management positions. You assign stories, train writers and other editors, deal with schedules and financial budgets.

Writers who switch to being editors are often very sad to give up the craft of writing, and may return. Some keep their hand in by writing editorials and occasional columns -- the productive approach. Others deals with it unproductively, insisting on rewriting their writers' stories the way they would have done it, even if it doesn't make the product any better.

Editors are also not on the front lines of journalism, and may miss the rush and excitement of covering big stories, and may resent their reporters.

Editors are also invisible -- they rarely get awards or write books about their experiences or get interviewed on television. They don't see their names on top of articles, just in the mastheads, which nobody ever reads.

Finally, when journalists become editors, they lose the camaraderie of the reporting craft. In the "us against them" world of journalism, editors are the ones who spike stories, make unnecessary changes, deny travel requests -- pretty much everything bad that happens to reporters comes from editors. (Or seems to.)

As a result of all of this, leaving reporting for editing is an emotionally difficult decision. Many editors were never reporters, going into editing straight out of college. They probably make the best editors -- they picked this career to start with, and they have few or no regrets about not writing.

I'm currently in the process of making this transition, and I do have to say that I like editing better than reporting. I love reporting and am good at it, but I'm certainly not better than all my writers put together, and I very much enjoy the process of producing something much larger than what I could do alone.

Reporters who make the transition within an existing organizational framework get support -- other editors to lean on, maybe even classes and other kinds of organized training.

When you run a foreign bureau, these resources are usually not available, unfortunately.

The last phase of a journalism career is publishing. Typically, publishers are hired from the ad sales side, and occasioally from distribution. It's rare that an editor makes the move to publisher.

Publishers need to be able to raise money -- either from advertising, from circulation, or from donations. these are not skills that editors have. In fact, editors are generally kept deliberately isolated from the business side of operations. And for good reason. But it makes for a very difficult transition.

When Nation editor Victor Navarsky made the move to publisher, he took a business class at Harvard Business School to help deal with ths. (You can read more about this in Staying power, a piece in the Guardian that ran in 2005.)

An MBA wouldn't hurt either, according to ASBPE's Reinventing your publishing career.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

Back from vacation, and back on the job

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.

I just got back from vacation yesterday, after a week spent on a beach on Hong Kong's Lantau Island.

Well, it was a vacation for my kids, at least. I spent some of my time reporting and writing articles about stock exchanges and alternative trading systems in Asia.

Ironically, given the fact that the Hong Kong Internet system is generally much better than that in China, I could not visit many sites from my hotel, including the SPJ's blog posting pages (which is why I haven't posted anything in a week). I also couldn't read Dilbert or Doonesbury.

The hotel's Internet security system wouldn't even let me proxy around it -- and I tried hard. I really wanted to get my daily Dilbert fix.

Nothing else seemed to have been affected -- I guess my hotel had a very effective but very weird firewall.

But except for the hotel-specific Internet problems, and my distance from my staff, it occurred to me how easy it would have been to just stay on the island. Lantau Island is one of the least populated parts of Hong Kong, but only a half-hour ferry ride right into Hong Kong central, at a cost of about US $2.50. The telephones are great, the weather is perfect, the scenery is spectacular.

I can easily do the bulk of my work there. And there's a pretty decent Italian restaurant next to the ferry landing, and a Turkish place that seems to be a favorite expat hangout, as well as two grocery stores and a very nice English bookstore that sells both new and used books.

If anyone is interested in becoming a financial technology journalist who lives on a beautiful tropical island, drop me a line. I can give you some advice.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria