Midwestern Professionalization Seminar for East Asian Studies: Careers in Journalism

In collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Indiana University, the East Asian Studies Center presents a Midwestern Professionalization Seminar in East Asian Studies with guest speakers:

Amy Qin
International Correspondent
The New York Times

Jonathan Cheng
China Bureau Chief
Wall Street Journal

Jeremy Goldkorn
Editor-in-chief of SupChina and co-host of the Sinica podcast

Abstract: The first in a series of three events about careers in East Asian studies will be hosted by UW-Madison's Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), and feature a panel of leading journalists in the field: Amy Qin of the New York Times, Jonathan Cheng of the Wall Street Journal, and Jeremy Goldkorn of SupChina.com Panelists will talk about their career paths, how they became interested in East Asian cultures and languages, and the challenges and joys of their current jobs. CEAS is collaborating with colleagues at The Ohio State University and Indiana University Bloomington for the “Midwestern Professionalization Seminar for East Asian Studies,” a three-part series of events in Spring 2022. The series is aimed at sharing skills for advancing one’s career and introducing various career paths using East Asian language and area studies expertise.

Amy Qin is an international correspondent for The New York Times covering the intersection of culture, politics and society in China. She has covered China's global soft power campaign, the emergence of its vast censorship apparatus and the many ways in which Chinese citizens thrive, cope and struggle in a landscape of deepening political control. For eight years she was based in Beijing, and her reporting has taken her from the frontlines of the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan to the antigovernment protests in Hong Kong. In 2020, she was on a team of Times journalists that was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for a series exposing China’s crackdown on Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Fluent in Mandarin, Ms. Qin is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Oxford University. She grew up in Northern California and spent childhood summers at her family’s ancestral homes in two of China’s spiciest provinces, Shaanxi and Sichuan.

Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the Journal's coverage of the world's second-largest economy across a range of areas including politics, economics, business, technology and society. Mr. Cheng oversees a team of more than two dozen correspondents and researchers in Beijing and Shanghai, with responsibility for the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Previously, Mr. Cheng was the Seoul bureau chief for the Journal, running coverage of the Korean peninsula, including North Korea and South Korean politics and business. He began his career as an intern in the Journal's Hong Kong bureau, and has also worked as a markets reporter in the Journal's New York office. Mr. Cheng speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, French and Korean. A native of Toronto, Canada, Mr. Cheng graduated from Princeton University with a degree in history

Jeremy Goldkorn is editor-in-chief of SupChina and co-host of the Sinica podcast. He moved to China in 1995 and became managing editor of Beijing's first independent English-language entertainment magazine. In 2003, he founded the website and research firm, Danwei, which tracked Chinese media, markets, politics, and business. It was acquired in 2013 by the Financial Times. He has lived in a worker's dormitory, produced a documentary film about African soccer players in Beijing, and rode a bicycle from Peshawar to Kathmandu via Kashgar and Lhasa. He is a graduate of the University of Cape Town.