Megha Rajagopalan is an award-winning international correspondent for BuzzFeed News, based in London. In this conversation recorded on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in London and New York, Megha and NüVoices board member Chenni Xu discuss Megha’s career trajectory from the U.S. to China, the Middle East, and beyond. This includes her award-winning reporting, her time on the board of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, and musings about the current and future direction of foreign correspondence and journalism in China. The pair also discuss whether the “golden age” of reporting in China is really over, their respective residencies in Beijing in the 2010s, and what has changed: from hutong food and beverage closures to more draconian measures taken by the government to censor civil society and the media.
Recommendations:
Megha: Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe, and Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo.
Chenni: FX/Hulu’s portentous new show on the second-wave feminists, Mrs. America, and Peter Hessler’s River Town.