By Michael J. Jordan, Visiting Professor, Renmin University of China

Our second course assignment was an illuminating piece of Foreign Reporting — or, as I also presented it: International Storytelling. From that, we produced this collection of 14 “humanized, fact-based” stories.

A core challenge was to show my young Chinese Student-Journalists how to think – and produce stories – as I would, as a Foreign Correspondent. No small feat, as they’d be doing so from their ownhomeland.

It’s an existential challenge, in fact. How to detach yourself, from all that you know about your own country, culture and community – to explain it clearly enough, so that your audience of smart, curious, non-China-expert foreigners can grasp the reality? How to step outside yourself, “to see the forest for the trees”?

More generally, our reporting project shed light onto the broader, deeper stories that Foreign Correspondents typically produce for such an audience. Each two-member team explored any societal issue that would excite you; ideally, it would be relevant to their career interests, after graduation. In doing so, they learn to frame the story so it: a) appeals to our audience, by b) “opening a window” onto a fast-changing China, and Chinese society itself.

They were to research the issue deeply, to understand the related “Big Picture” trend/movement across China. Support this with credible facts, and relevant background context, from credible sources – all hyperlinked in their story, as both transparent evidence and additional “reader-friendly” material.

Plus, arrange to visit any organization “on the frontlines” of this issue, to “humanize” the reality, and conduct at least three interviews: a leader of the organization, a grassroots activist and a “beneficiary.”

Later, interview a fourth source, by phone or in person: an expert/analyst who can “connect dots” between this group – as a symbolic microcosm of the trend itself – and the Big Picture.