Why Blogging Beats Journalism in China

This is a guest post by journalist Thomas Crampton.

My first exposure to China came as Asia correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, when I would fly around the region covering economic, political and cultural news.

It was a dream job, with editors giving me almost total freedom to travel for whatever coverage I might like to do. My trips in China ranged from Yunnan to write about the world’s last living hieroglyphic script to picturesque Guilin to write about an ancient cure being used to fight malaria to Beijing to write about a blues singer.

At the time, the only way to learn what was happening in China was to see it with your own eyes. Changes happen so fast that even contacts who had recently visited a city did not have the latest information.

While there still is no replacement for being there, blogging and Twitter have in recent years opened fantastic new channels for gathering ideas and information.

The old journalist method of “smile and dial” calls to diplomats and trusted analysts, has now been augmented through interactive media like blogs and Twitter.

Now, as a China blogger no longer working at the IHT, I send out short messages on Twitter or post a query in the form of a blog entry, both of which often give me large amounts of information. One of my most popular entries in January, for example, was about Mark Ndesandjo, the half-brother of Barack Obama.

I knew little about Ndesandjo, who runs an Internet company in Shenzhen, until I started a very short blog posting on him. The comments on the posting, now numbering more than 20, quickly turned the item into a hub of information about Ndesandjo that was eventually quoted by mainstream news organizations, including London’s Independent and the Irish Times.

These communal efforts make blogging about China a powerful tool for understanding one of the world’s most fascinating countries.

On his blog Thomas Crampton writes about China, the Internet and New Media, as seen from Asia. His day job is working at Ogilvy PR as the regional director of Digital Influence.

Tagged as: blogging, journalism, Media, Twitter