As an Asian journalist working in a Chinese newsroom, I am often left in limbo, not quite fitting into the American/Australian/British expatriate crowd, and not quite part of the Chinese editors' clique. It is a voluntary isolation that allows me an objective view of the changes that seem to have taken place overnight in the last five years.
It is both an enlightening experience and a unique education.
Not so long ago, any native English speaker who could string together a sentence could hire himself out as an editor or language teacher in China and earn the price of an air ticket home. Not any more.
The quality of expatriates in the local newsroom has improved significantly. My foreign colleagues include true professionals who are here because they want to be where the action is, and they are here, too, to share their knowledge as experienced journalists. One was part of a team that produced a Pulitzer Prize-winning series.
The most striking change apparent in local media is the gradual transformation from State-administered units under the propaganda machinery to commercial corporations that need to earn their keep and still adhere to the universal newsroom missions of informing, educating and entertaining.
True, there is always the Big Budget to fall back upon, but the transformation has begun.
In such a data-hungry country as China, any media, especially exciting new forms, is embraced readily.
From print to digital, from land lines to mobile apps, the metamorphosis is skidding along at warp speed, which sometimes leaves those unwilling to change biting the dust their competitors leave behind.
The buzzwords that resonate in the boardrooms now are from a totally new vocabulary. Unique selling points, key performance indices, product management and marketing, native advertising … these are all exotic fresh terms to learn.
Buying the latest hardware and getting the latest software are just part of the process. The most important changes come from the most important asset in any news organization－the people.
For people to change, the corporate culture must change.
A unifying corporate culture preaches the company creed, views it as a complete whole, and not as a group of separate entities with individual interests, much like the competing communes of the past whose purpose is reflected in their Chinese name－"production brigade".
The Chinese media market place is still somewhat like the Wild Wild West, and success stories revolve around the bold and adventurous. Sooner or later, and in China it is still likely to be sooner than later, things will settle, and then it will all boil down to who gets his act together first.
As the market finds the most level playing field, mergers are already happening, and in Shanghai especially, we see it in a marriage of print and digital platforms, of newspapers and magazines, of general and niche media.
Media is not the only thing that is changing. How clients advertise, and what they are looking for in buying into media is also very different from just a decade ago. They want interaction, they want instant gratification, and they want to know which media works best－and they want to know it all, yesterday.
For newsroom managers told to keep an eye on the bottom line, there is yet another line that swims into vision with increasing frequency－the thin line that divides editorial credibility and successful marketing of the product.
It calls for a completely different set of skills from those taught in journalism school.
The hardest lessons to learn are about connecting the product and potential clients, and that always starts by listening. In China, that's often the most difficult thing to master.
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