Know My Audience Well

By Chenwei Fan

I was quite confused when Michael asked us to include “Darwinian origins and evolution” of the issue we wanted to cover. We had to spend almost 50% of the article explaining earlier trend of the issue. Shall I call this news writing at all?

After 16 weeks with Michael, I have found the answer to my question. It is all about how to impact my target audience effectively. For international reporting, it is even more important to know who my audiences are, what they want to know about China and why they want to do so.

Reporting on China for international readers is very different from doing the same for Chinese. International readers come from diverse cultural backgrounds. I should not expect them to be experts on Chinese social issues. Therefore, I should let them know why this is important – with the “Darwinian origins and evolution”. 😄

What I Have Learnt in This Course

By Lin Shihao (Hao)

I have learnt a lot and this never goes to compliment category. The most important one is that telling a story is mutual communication, instead of conveying your thoughts in single direction to your audience. When I wrote my first assignment, I assumed all my audience were experts in Earth Hour. But this just would not work and probably my dear audience would never read my stories again. So I learnt to clarify, a name, a festival, a word or anything that might cause confusion.

For Chinese like us, we might never realize how China is important and how proud we should feel born here. But this class breeds, or at least reinforces that perception. There are so many different and readable stories happening every day. All I need to do is using my pen, or in modern time using my keyboard, to tell those stories to the world!

What I Have Learned

By Leo Fu

How time flies and we are going to finish this lovely course.

Michael’s lectures indeed improved my critical thinking and taught me several useful writing structures that would appeal to smart, curious international audiences. Michael’s shiny “diamond” and “fork” impressed me most, which are both innovative and practical.

For example, I reported the Confucius Institution’s volunteer program this semester. By Michael’s instruction, I tried humanizing the story and exploring the big picture behind it and finally made this story more accessible and meaningful. I deeply understand on the way to be a good storyteller, we student journalists should spare no effort …

What I have Learned in Michael’s Journalism Class

By Hongtao Hao

Through attending this course, I got to know what to consider first before deciding on an appropriate topic: why smart curious international audiences will be interested in this?

When Shihao and I were choosing “Earth Hour” as the story for our first assignment, we asked ourselves the above question and concluded that since China is the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, whether its people are striving to conserve energy is of significance to the whole world. Because of this, our story will engage those smart curious international audiences.

Also, I learned how to “connect the dots”, reveal the “big picture”, and stick to the “diamond structure”. I learned to “show”, not to “tell”. For example, in the second assignment, Ray and I talked about the boom in the number of marathons in China. But, conscious of the “big picture”, we went on to discuss the development of sports industry in China. When we were trying to convey the idea that “marathons are developing at a staggering pace” and “an increasing number of Chinese are becoming health-conscious and doing regular physical activities”, we did not “tell” these facts; rather, we pinpointed the upward trends by adding figures where the growths are explicitly “shown”.

Lastly, I have to say that all this knowledge is overshadowed by the very experience of attending this highly dynamic class!