News coverage on China has been hindered by tightened restrictions on foreign press reporting in China, including the expulsion of journalists from major U.S. papers. These developments come at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China and the need for objective, fact-based, on-the-ground journalism.

Join us for a conversation on how journalism in China has changed over the years. How have journalists adapted to these changes? What does the future look like when it comes to reporting on China?

Here is our Speaker Lineup: 

• Mary Kay Magistad (Moderator) - Deputy Director, Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations
• Melinda Liu - Beijing Bureau Chief, Newsweek 
• John Ruwitch - International Desk Correspondent, NPR
• Ann Scott Tyson - Beijing Bureau Chief, The Christian Science Monitor 

AGENDA

Date: Monday, August 28, 2023 from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m Pacific.

• 5:00 p.m. Program Begins - Opening Remarks
• 5:00 p.m. Introductory Remarks
• 5:05 p.m. Moderated Discussion followed by Audience Q&A
• 6:00 p.m. Program Concludes

SPEAKER BIOS 

Mary Kay Magistad (Moderator) is Deputy Director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, and an award-winning journalist who lived and reported in East Asia for more than two decades, including in China for NPR (1995-99) and PRI/BBC's The World (2003-13), and in Southeast Asia for NPR, The Washington Post, and others (1988-95). She has created two critically acclaimed podcasts, On China’s New Silk Road (2020) and Whose Century Is It? (2015-18), and has taught international reporting and audio journalism at UC Berkeley.

John Ruwitch is a correspondent with NPR's international desk. He covers Chinese affairs.

Ruwitch joined NPR in early 2020, and has since chronicled the tectonic shift in America's relations with China, from hopeful engagement to suspicion-fueled competition. He's also reported on a range of other issues, including Beijing's pressure campaign on Taiwan, Hong Kong's National Security Law, Asian-Americans considering guns for self-defense in the face of rising violence and a herd of elephants roaming in the Chinese countryside in search of a home.

Ruwitch joined NPR after more than 19 years with Reuters in Asia, the last eight of which were in Shanghai. There, he first covered a broad beat that took him as far afield as the China-North Korea border and the edge of the South China Sea. Later, he led a team that covered business and financial markets in the world's second biggest economy. Ruwitch has also had postings in Hanoi, Hong Kong and Beijing, reporting on anti-corruption campaigns, elite Communist politics, labor disputes, human rights, currency devaluations, earthquakes, snowstorms, Olympic badminton and everything in between.

Ruwitch studied history at U.C. Santa Cruz and got a master's in Regional Studies East Asia from Harvard. He speaks Mandarin and Vietnamese.

Melinda Liu is Beijing Bureau Chief for Newsweek Magazine, having lived and worked in the Chinese capital from November 1998 to the present. Liu also opened the first Newsweek Beijing Bureau and resided in Beijing from March 1980 to late 1982. In her journalistic career, Liu covered many aspects of China's post-Mao modernization; the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban; the first Persian Gulf War, and U.S. military interventions in Somalia and Haiti. Her firsthand reporting from Baghdad on the fall of Saddam Hussein was part of an award-winning Newsweek issue.  Liu won the 2006 Shorenstein Journalism Award in recognition of her reporting on Asia.

Ann Scott Tyson is the Monitor’s Beijing Bureau Chief, covering China and Northeast Asia. Ann is an award-winning journalist and author whose career includes a decade covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and eight years as a foreign correspondent in China and Asia. Her U.S. beats have included the Pentagon, Congress, and the Midwest. In addition to the Monitor, she has reported for The Washington Post and contributed to The Wall Street Journal. 

Ann is the author of a bestselling Afghanistan war memoir, “American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant.” She also co-wrote “Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories from the Unofficial China.”