Special China Journalism Lecture -- China in the Age of Obama: Democrats, Identity, and Style
Evan Osnos, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Obama’s victory altered America’s self-image and China’s image of America, but it should also focus our attention on recent changes in China’s self-image. Young, ethnically diverse Americans donated money online and cast ballots to elect the first African-American president. That story has resonated widely in China at a time in which foreigners are settling in Chinese cities, a rising generation of film directors are capturing life on the margins of China’s rise, and the Internet is offering vital new channels for expression. Evan Osnos is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, based in Beijing. Previously, he was the Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, where he co-authored an investigation of unsafe products that won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize. Among other awards, he has received the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for coverage of Asia, the Overseas Press Club award for writing on the environment, and the Livingston Award, for foreign reporting. In China, he has worked as a correspondent for the PBS program, FRONTLINE/World. Before China, he spent two years as a Chicago Tribune correspondent in the Middle East, reporting mostly from Iraq. He is a 1998 graduate of Harvard.