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. They start missing their friends and parents. They want to buy shoes that aren't four sizes too small. They want real pizza. They miss Chinese food. (There's no Chinese food as we know it in China. Unlike India, which is full of Indian food. And Japan, which is full of sushi.)
Also, copyeditors tend to be quiet, meticulous people. They're good at punctuation and AP style. They tend not to hop on a plane and move to China.
The ones who do are the risk-takers, the earth-shakers -- but they often don't have the patience for good copyediting. As a result, China is full of English-language editors who are not really a natural fit for their jobs.
And there are plenty of English-language pubs here that can use a good go-over.
Skills needed:
* The ability to work across time zones, with people you've never met, who have trouble communicating in English.
* Must be patient -- you don't have to clean up the whole paper at once. Just leave it better than when you started. Gradual improvement is the key.
* It helps if you can switch between US and British spelling and grammar.
* It also helps if you're sensitive and willing to teach. Use grammar and usage mistakes as learning opportunities for your writers. They'll be greatful, and your work will get easier as their writing improves. If you're heavy-handed, they might start arguing with you -- and really, you can win a grammar argument with someone on the other side of the world who has his English grammar textbook open in front of him. (Some of the English textbooks used here are just horrible.)
How to get started:
* Do some networking. Volunteer to help edit websites for professional journalism organizations, or copyedit some industry newsletters. Do a long-distance internship or two. Build up a portfolio and a list of contacts.
* Work one-on-one with writers. There are Chinese writers (I personally know at least one) who are writing for US pubs about China and could use some editing help.
Benefits:
* China is growing very fast and needs more and more copyeditors. This is a career that will keep you set for life.
* You work at home, on your own schedule.
* You get to travel to China to meet your writers and bosses, and it's a tax-deductible business expense. Hey, your pubs might even spring for the tickets.
* You'll be part of covering the biggest story on the planet. Without leaving your home.
* You can work around your current job or class schedule or babies or sick parents.
* You can live on a tropical island somewhere and take your laptop to the beach where you work while you sip (virgin) pina coladas.
Look me up.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Email interviews a boon for overseas and foreign reporters
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've long thought that email interviews were the lazy man's way of researching a story. You put gother a list of questions, copy and email them to everyone who might potentially be a source -- whoever writes back, you cut-and-paste their answers into your story outline, and you've got the article.
But now it seems that some sources prefer them, too. Check out, for example, this article by Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz: Interviews, Going the Way of the Linotype?
An email interview, even more so than a taped interview, protects both the source and the reporter.
For international journalists, email interviews have a few other advantages, as well.
For example, if you are in the United States, it can be very difficult to call China and some other Asian countries. One of my editors, used to have to get quotes from Asia on a regular basis, and completely gave up trying to do it by telephone.
When I was back in the States last summer and had to do China interviews, it was equally difficult. I tried AT&T among other providers. The calls just woundn't go through, and if they did, the connections were lousy, there were echoes on the line, it was really hard to have a conversation. This is really ironic, since I have no problems calling out of China at all. When I have an interview scheduled with a US-based source, I arrange to make the call. Sometimes, people do insist on calling me -- about 20% the connection is fine. The rest of the time, it's pretty horrible and I have to call them back. When I call out, it's crystal clear 100% of the time (I use CNC IP calling cards, and recommend them highly.) People can't tell that I'm calling from overseas.
But my point was -- email eliminates the problems with bad telephone connections.,
Email also reduces the problems of understanding people's accents. Most non-native English speakers write better than they speak -- and, if they wanted to be absolutely certain about what they said, they can have someone look over their email before they send it out (not to mention running a spell and grammar checker over it). There's no way to do that with a telephone interview.
Email also eliminates the problem of the reporter's accent. Foreign reporters can run their questions through a grammar checker, a colleague, and maybe even past their editors just to be on a safe side. And they'll never hear that annoying, "I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question. I still can't understand you, what did you say?"
Finally, email solves the time lag problem. You send out your quotes during the day, your time. The sources answer them twelve hours later -- during their working hours. You come in to work in the morning, and you've got your answers and can send out follow-up questions.
It's no good for breaking news stories -- but for those you have to stay up all night, anyway, so you might as well make the calls.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
I've long thought that email interviews were the lazy man's way of researching a story. You put gother a list of questions, copy and email them to everyone who might potentially be a source -- whoever writes back, you cut-and-paste their answers into your story outline, and you've got the article.
But now it seems that some sources prefer them, too. Check out, for example, this article by Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz: Interviews, Going the Way of the Linotype?
An email interview, even more so than a taped interview, protects both the source and the reporter.
For international journalists, email interviews have a few other advantages, as well.
For example, if you are in the United States, it can be very difficult to call China and some other Asian countries. One of my editors, used to have to get quotes from Asia on a regular basis, and completely gave up trying to do it by telephone.
When I was back in the States last summer and had to do China interviews, it was equally difficult. I tried AT&T among other providers. The calls just woundn't go through, and if they did, the connections were lousy, there were echoes on the line, it was really hard to have a conversation. This is really ironic, since I have no problems calling out of China at all. When I have an interview scheduled with a US-based source, I arrange to make the call. Sometimes, people do insist on calling me -- about 20% the connection is fine. The rest of the time, it's pretty horrible and I have to call them back. When I call out, it's crystal clear 100% of the time (I use CNC IP calling cards, and recommend them highly.) People can't tell that I'm calling from overseas.
But my point was -- email eliminates the problems with bad telephone connections.,
Email also reduces the problems of understanding people's accents. Most non-native English speakers write better than they speak -- and, if they wanted to be absolutely certain about what they said, they can have someone look over their email before they send it out (not to mention running a spell and grammar checker over it). There's no way to do that with a telephone interview.
Email also eliminates the problem of the reporter's accent. Foreign reporters can run their questions through a grammar checker, a colleague, and maybe even past their editors just to be on a safe side. And they'll never hear that annoying, "I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question. I still can't understand you, what did you say?"
Finally, email solves the time lag problem. You send out your quotes during the day, your time. The sources answer them twelve hours later -- during their working hours. You come in to work in the morning, and you've got your answers and can send out follow-up questions.
It's no good for breaking news stories -- but for those you have to stay up all night, anyway, so you might as well make the calls.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Thursday, May 17, 2007
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 going to use this forum to look back on my 15-plus years in the field.
Today's mistake: Bad record-keeping
This isn't the biggest mistake I ever made as a journalist. (I'll save the ones that got people killed for a little later on.)
But it is a mistake that bothers me more and more as times goes on. It doesn't bother me a huge amount, but just enough.
For example, I don't know where most of my old sources are now. I kept records on various little scraps of paper, on computer disks that are no longer compatible with computers (and are probably unreadable by now, anyway), and in memo books that are mouldering in miscellaneous attics.
Nobody working today should be making this mistake: keep all your sources in an easy-to-use electronic format, and move them all over whenever you upgrade software. The guy you interviewed ten years ago may have become the CEO of the company - and if you'd kept in touch with him once in a while, you would know that.
And not just sources are lost -- so are former colleagues.
I have a bad memory for names, and have forgotten those of many of the people I've worked with, and who have been influential in my life. I've forgotten the name of the Chicago Tribune international editor who suggested that I go overseas on my own rather than waiting for someone to send me. I forgot the name of the sports editor I worked next to for months in Moscow who has since married and moved to Cleveland. I forgot the last name of Jose, who wrote that fantastic piece about learning to deal with Russian bureaucrats -- not by crying (as a columnist at a competing newspaper suggested) but by learning to vomit at will. Jose, where are you now?
Okay, I went and Googled -- his full name is Jose Alanis. But I still can't figure out where he is now.
But there's even more stuff that I've forgotten. For example, I haven't kept clips of all my published articles and photographs -- some of them have probably disappeared forever. Or stored in a dark archive somewhere forgotten by all.
Some of these are historic photographs, too -- such as the one I took of Manana Gamsakhurdia wailing over the grave of her husband, the first democratically elected president of Georgia (who later became a tyrant, was deposed, launched a civil war, and, before he died under mysterious circumstances, gave me the last media interview of his life).
And I've also lost details of important events in my life. Details that I didn't bother writing about when I was living them that now I really wish I had access to. Someday, I might write a book about my times in the war zones -- or, at the very least, blog posts. I'll have to rely on my memory, and my memory stinks.
Please, young journalists, learn from my mistakes: keep good records. Keep a journal. Take plenty of pictures and store them in formats that will adapt as technology progresses.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
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 going to use this forum to look back on my 15-plus years in the field.
Today's mistake: Bad record-keeping
This isn't the biggest mistake I ever made as a journalist. (I'll save the ones that got people killed for a little later on.)
But it is a mistake that bothers me more and more as times goes on. It doesn't bother me a huge amount, but just enough.
For example, I don't know where most of my old sources are now. I kept records on various little scraps of paper, on computer disks that are no longer compatible with computers (and are probably unreadable by now, anyway), and in memo books that are mouldering in miscellaneous attics.
Nobody working today should be making this mistake: keep all your sources in an easy-to-use electronic format, and move them all over whenever you upgrade software. The guy you interviewed ten years ago may have become the CEO of the company - and if you'd kept in touch with him once in a while, you would know that.
And not just sources are lost -- so are former colleagues.
I have a bad memory for names, and have forgotten those of many of the people I've worked with, and who have been influential in my life. I've forgotten the name of the Chicago Tribune international editor who suggested that I go overseas on my own rather than waiting for someone to send me. I forgot the name of the sports editor I worked next to for months in Moscow who has since married and moved to Cleveland. I forgot the last name of Jose, who wrote that fantastic piece about learning to deal with Russian bureaucrats -- not by crying (as a columnist at a competing newspaper suggested) but by learning to vomit at will. Jose, where are you now?
Okay, I went and Googled -- his full name is Jose Alanis. But I still can't figure out where he is now.
But there's even more stuff that I've forgotten. For example, I haven't kept clips of all my published articles and photographs -- some of them have probably disappeared forever. Or stored in a dark archive somewhere forgotten by all.
Some of these are historic photographs, too -- such as the one I took of Manana Gamsakhurdia wailing over the grave of her husband, the first democratically elected president of Georgia (who later became a tyrant, was deposed, launched a civil war, and, before he died under mysterious circumstances, gave me the last media interview of his life).
And I've also lost details of important events in my life. Details that I didn't bother writing about when I was living them that now I really wish I had access to. Someday, I might write a book about my times in the war zones -- or, at the very least, blog posts. I'll have to rely on my memory, and my memory stinks.
Please, young journalists, learn from my mistakes: keep good records. Keep a journal. Take plenty of pictures and store them in formats that will adapt as technology progresses.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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 (that's Shanghai)
Associate Representative: Amy Sommers (Squire Sanders and Dempsey L.L.P.)
Treasurer: Alex Kauffmann (What If!)
As you can see, it's a pretty eclectic, international collection of people. That is a wonderful thing about participating in foreign correspondent clubs -- you meet journalists from all around the world.
For any journalist starting out in their career overseas, I strongly recommend joining such a club and getting involved. Even as a simple go-fer, you'll meet top journalists from the world's best publications, and demonstrate your ability to hustle.
I missed the meeting due to a business conflict, so I'll make up for it by buying people drinks at the weekly beer get-together at Cotton's Bar.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
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 (that's Shanghai)
Associate Representative: Amy Sommers (Squire Sanders and Dempsey L.L.P.)
Treasurer: Alex Kauffmann (What If!)
As you can see, it's a pretty eclectic, international collection of people. That is a wonderful thing about participating in foreign correspondent clubs -- you meet journalists from all around the world.
For any journalist starting out in their career overseas, I strongly recommend joining such a club and getting involved. Even as a simple go-fer, you'll meet top journalists from the world's best publications, and demonstrate your ability to hustle.
I missed the meeting due to a business conflict, so I'll make up for it by buying people drinks at the weekly beer get-together at Cotton's Bar.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Both high-end and low-end reporting jobs can be outsourced
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.
Low end reporting work: Get press release. Rewrite to AP style. Call the company involved for a follow-up quote. File.
High end reporting work: Research a difficult technical, financial, regulatory, medical or scientific subject. Call a dozen experts or participants. Write an in-depth, analytical story. File.
Both types of work can be done by telephone and Internet. Neither require on-the-ground reporting.
Here in Shanghai, we do cover a lot of Chinese stories. It helps that we have Chinese speakers on staff to read Chinese-language reports and conduct interviews. But we also cover all of Asia-Pacific, especially when it comes to the payments, securities and outsourcing industries. These are specialized fields where subject matter expertise is more important than nation of origin.
But, more than that, we also cover US and European finance and technology stories, using writers in China and India.
Part of it is the fact that, for specialized stories, geographical boundaries are meaningless. For example, even when I was reporting from the US, I often quoted technology users at brokerage companies in Europe and Asia, even when the vendors themselves were based in the United States. And the experiences of those users are more and more like those of users in US offices. If a bank in Japan, for example, has a problem with a particular online banking platform, banks in the US will probably have the same issues. (Except in cases where local conditions, such as double-character fonts, are at fault.)
The other part is that once you can talk to a bank or a brokerage in Japan or Korea or Australia or Germany, you can talk to a bank anywhere. If you've figured out what service oriented architectures are all about, you can use that knowledge in any story. A background in chemistry or medicine can help you tackle these specialized stories in any geography.
Finally, many stories no longer have a particular geography associated with them. For example, for a story about a particular company's plans for China, we might talk to their China managers and customers. We would also talk to senior executives in the United States, and experts and analysts in both countries.
These days more and more stories fall into the latter category as entire industries become globalized overnight.
Add to that the fact that executives rarely sit in one spot anymore -- they're flying all over the planet.
It's happened to me more than once this past year:
I call a US company to set up an interview with executives. The PR person organizes the call. I get up in the middle of the night to call in. During introductions, I explain that I'm calling in from Shanghai. Then the vice president explains that he's calling in from India. And the other senior exec is calling in from Japan. The only one on the call for whom it's the middle of the day is the low-level PR person organizing it. (Much hilarity and embarrassment for the PR person ensues.)
So it comes down to experience. Does the reporter know the industry? Know the technology? Have the financial or scientific background to tackle the story?
The same things are important as with US-based reporters: How many years have they been covering the industry? Have they written articles on similar topics? Do they have an educational background that prepares them for the work?
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Low end reporting work: Get press release. Rewrite to AP style. Call the company involved for a follow-up quote. File.
High end reporting work: Research a difficult technical, financial, regulatory, medical or scientific subject. Call a dozen experts or participants. Write an in-depth, analytical story. File.
Both types of work can be done by telephone and Internet. Neither require on-the-ground reporting.
Here in Shanghai, we do cover a lot of Chinese stories. It helps that we have Chinese speakers on staff to read Chinese-language reports and conduct interviews. But we also cover all of Asia-Pacific, especially when it comes to the payments, securities and outsourcing industries. These are specialized fields where subject matter expertise is more important than nation of origin.
But, more than that, we also cover US and European finance and technology stories, using writers in China and India.
Part of it is the fact that, for specialized stories, geographical boundaries are meaningless. For example, even when I was reporting from the US, I often quoted technology users at brokerage companies in Europe and Asia, even when the vendors themselves were based in the United States. And the experiences of those users are more and more like those of users in US offices. If a bank in Japan, for example, has a problem with a particular online banking platform, banks in the US will probably have the same issues. (Except in cases where local conditions, such as double-character fonts, are at fault.)
The other part is that once you can talk to a bank or a brokerage in Japan or Korea or Australia or Germany, you can talk to a bank anywhere. If you've figured out what service oriented architectures are all about, you can use that knowledge in any story. A background in chemistry or medicine can help you tackle these specialized stories in any geography.
Finally, many stories no longer have a particular geography associated with them. For example, for a story about a particular company's plans for China, we might talk to their China managers and customers. We would also talk to senior executives in the United States, and experts and analysts in both countries.
These days more and more stories fall into the latter category as entire industries become globalized overnight.
Add to that the fact that executives rarely sit in one spot anymore -- they're flying all over the planet.
It's happened to me more than once this past year:
I call a US company to set up an interview with executives. The PR person organizes the call. I get up in the middle of the night to call in. During introductions, I explain that I'm calling in from Shanghai. Then the vice president explains that he's calling in from India. And the other senior exec is calling in from Japan. The only one on the call for whom it's the middle of the day is the low-level PR person organizing it. (Much hilarity and embarrassment for the PR person ensues.)
So it comes down to experience. Does the reporter know the industry? Know the technology? Have the financial or scientific background to tackle the story?
The same things are important as with US-based reporters: How many years have they been covering the industry? Have they written articles on similar topics? Do they have an educational background that prepares them for the work?
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Monday, May 14, 2007
I don't think I'm a foreign correspondent anymore
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).
Today, I finally realized that I'm not a journalist anymore. Just now, about five minutes ago.
Great thing about keeping a blog -- years later, I'll be able to look up the exact moment at which my 15-year run as a journalist ended.
This weekend, I received my third offer this year to buy out my company.
Tomorrow, I have a choice between attending the annual meeting of the Foreign Correspondents Club and a business meeting --and I picked the business meeting.
On Saturday, I had lunch with a friend who told me that when he first came to Shanghai, he had all kinds of friends -- but the only friends he's got now are entrepreneurs. He was talking about the fact that entrepreneurs get tied to China by their companies, while everyone else leaves. But what he was also saying is that your friends determine who you are.
All my close friends now run companies. When I first came to Shanghai, all my friends were journalists. I'm not close to them anymore, but not because they left China. Some did, but others are still around.
It feels a little like someone died. Or, more accurately, like high school graduation.
I love journalism. I had a lot of different jobs before I became a reporter. They were all fun -- when work was good. But most of the time, work was just work, and the jobs were excruciating. I couldn't quit them fast enough. Reporting was the only work that was fun even when at its worst.
Pretty much any day over these past fifteen years I could have said -- and often did say -- "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this."
It's been a fantastic run.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Today, I finally realized that I'm not a journalist anymore. Just now, about five minutes ago.
Great thing about keeping a blog -- years later, I'll be able to look up the exact moment at which my 15-year run as a journalist ended.
This weekend, I received my third offer this year to buy out my company.
Tomorrow, I have a choice between attending the annual meeting of the Foreign Correspondents Club and a business meeting --and I picked the business meeting.
On Saturday, I had lunch with a friend who told me that when he first came to Shanghai, he had all kinds of friends -- but the only friends he's got now are entrepreneurs. He was talking about the fact that entrepreneurs get tied to China by their companies, while everyone else leaves. But what he was also saying is that your friends determine who you are.
All my close friends now run companies. When I first came to Shanghai, all my friends were journalists. I'm not close to them anymore, but not because they left China. Some did, but others are still around.
It feels a little like someone died. Or, more accurately, like high school graduation.
I love journalism. I had a lot of different jobs before I became a reporter. They were all fun -- when work was good. But most of the time, work was just work, and the jobs were excruciating. I couldn't quit them fast enough. Reporting was the only work that was fun even when at its worst.
Pretty much any day over these past fifteen years I could have said -- and often did say -- "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this."
It's been a fantastic run.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
Sunday, May 13, 2007
How to get people in China to talk on the record
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).
The most common question I get from new hires -- and other reporters new to China - is how to get people to talk on the record.
Here's a typical example:
Assignment: are Chinese furniture manufacturers looking to buy US distributors in order to get customers, marketing and sales?
Easy peasy, right? There are millions of Chinese furniture manufacturers (more or less) and this is not exactly a sensitive investigative story.
Solution: I put together a list of questions -- are you? why? how is it working out? what's next for you? -- and put the first writer on the job. After a week of "no comments" she quit the job. Not a single quote.
I handed the list of question to two other writers. Another week passed. A week full of telephone calls -- and not a single quote.
Here is what I heard from my researchers (and I've heard the same from many other writers in China):
"People in China don't like to talk on the record."
"People in China don't like to speak to foreign reporters."
"People in China don't like to speak to Chinese reporters."
"People in China don't like to talk to strangers on the telephone."
I couldn't ask the questions myself -- my Chinese is minimal and while in the financial and tech industries pleenty of people speak in English, in the furniture industry, not so much.
So I picked up the phone. I got a list of Chinese furniture companies online from Alibaba.com, and started calling the contact people listed.
Typical conversation:
"Hello. I am American journalists. I want talk. You have don't have person speaks English?"
First company: passed me along to a sales assistant. I asked my questions. I got my answers.
Second company: asked me to email questions. They got answers right back to me.
Third company: after the first two broken Chinese phrases from me, I passed the phone to the researcher for the rest of the questions.
End of day: 10 for 10.
What was the difference? It wasn't that I was a foreigner -- plenty of foreigners have problems getting people to talk on the record. It certainly wasn't that my communication skills were that great.
It is a different of attitude. If your attitude is that people will talk, then people will talk. If your attitude is that people won't talk, then people won't talk.
In our office, we have a heavy emphasis on sourcing. We require three different on-the-record sources for every 500 words of story, as a general guideline. One source affected by the news (or user, or buyer), one source making the news (or the vendor), and one expert or analyst.
If you make enough phone calls, somebody is going to talk to you.
The trick is defining "enough."
"Enough" does not mean "enough phone calls so that the boss knows you tried."
"Enough" means "enough phone calls to get a quote."
If it's the first definition of enough, then you can keep calling until you're blue and you still won't have a quote. If it's the second definition, then that attitude is passed along to the person on the other side of the line, and you're going to strike payload very quickly.
One thing I love about employees who are new to reporting is that they don't know yet that "people in China don't like to talk." They can get lots of quotes.
And once you get enough people in the office working on the assumption that everybody will talk - well, all of a sudden, everybody starts talking.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
The most common question I get from new hires -- and other reporters new to China - is how to get people to talk on the record.
Here's a typical example:
Assignment: are Chinese furniture manufacturers looking to buy US distributors in order to get customers, marketing and sales?
Easy peasy, right? There are millions of Chinese furniture manufacturers (more or less) and this is not exactly a sensitive investigative story.
Solution: I put together a list of questions -- are you? why? how is it working out? what's next for you? -- and put the first writer on the job. After a week of "no comments" she quit the job. Not a single quote.
I handed the list of question to two other writers. Another week passed. A week full of telephone calls -- and not a single quote.
Here is what I heard from my researchers (and I've heard the same from many other writers in China):
"People in China don't like to talk on the record."
"People in China don't like to speak to foreign reporters."
"People in China don't like to speak to Chinese reporters."
"People in China don't like to talk to strangers on the telephone."
I couldn't ask the questions myself -- my Chinese is minimal and while in the financial and tech industries pleenty of people speak in English, in the furniture industry, not so much.
So I picked up the phone. I got a list of Chinese furniture companies online from Alibaba.com, and started calling the contact people listed.
Typical conversation:
"Hello. I am American journalists. I want talk. You have don't have person speaks English?"
First company: passed me along to a sales assistant. I asked my questions. I got my answers.
Second company: asked me to email questions. They got answers right back to me.
Third company: after the first two broken Chinese phrases from me, I passed the phone to the researcher for the rest of the questions.
End of day: 10 for 10.
What was the difference? It wasn't that I was a foreigner -- plenty of foreigners have problems getting people to talk on the record. It certainly wasn't that my communication skills were that great.
It is a different of attitude. If your attitude is that people will talk, then people will talk. If your attitude is that people won't talk, then people won't talk.
In our office, we have a heavy emphasis on sourcing. We require three different on-the-record sources for every 500 words of story, as a general guideline. One source affected by the news (or user, or buyer), one source making the news (or the vendor), and one expert or analyst.
If you make enough phone calls, somebody is going to talk to you.
The trick is defining "enough."
"Enough" does not mean "enough phone calls so that the boss knows you tried."
"Enough" means "enough phone calls to get a quote."
If it's the first definition of enough, then you can keep calling until you're blue and you still won't have a quote. If it's the second definition, then that attitude is passed along to the person on the other side of the line, and you're going to strike payload very quickly.
One thing I love about employees who are new to reporting is that they don't know yet that "people in China don't like to talk." They can get lots of quotes.
And once you get enough people in the office working on the assumption that everybody will talk - well, all of a sudden, everybody starts talking.
Signing off in Shanghai,
Maria
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