2014 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, Chinese journalist wields power of truth

MANILA, Philippines - In few countries of the world is journalism as professionally intricate, politically risky and socially challenging as in China. And because of China’s position in the world, in few countries is journalism’s practice as far-reaching in its consequences.

In this context, the career of  Ramon Magsaysay awardee Hu Shuli is truly exemplary. Hu, 61, comes from a distinguished line of journalists: her mother was senior editor of  Workers Dailyin Beijing; her grandfather was an editor of a Shanghai newspaper; and a grand uncle was a publisher and the deputy minister of culture before the Cultural Revolution.  While Hu’s family fell from grace during the Cultural Revolution, Hu stayed in the stream of events. She joined the Red Guards and later the People’s Liberation Army, graduated from Beijing’s People’s University and started her journalistic career by working for Workers’ Daily.

In 1987, a five-month sojourn as a fellow of the World Press Institute opened Hu’s eyes to Western media. Upon her return, she published the first book which introduced Chinese audiences to the operations of professional journalism as practiced in the United States. China Business Timessubsequently tapped her to serve as their international editor, a post she kept for six years. 

In 1998 she established and edited Caijing, a glossy business magazine whose circulation rose to 225,000 because of the quality of its coverage and its groundbreaking investigative reporting.  Even among those they investigated, Caijingstaff were widely acknowledged for their discipline, thoroughness and integrity – standards which Hu uncompromisingly demanded of herself and her colleagues.

In a media environment where the very idea of “investigative journalism” seems defiant, Caijing’s reporting was cutting-edge journalism.  Its well-researched reports included illegal trading practices in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, exposés of the government cover-up of the true extent of the 2003 SARS epidemic, the anomalous privatization of the huge, state-owned Luneng conglomerate and falsification of the profits of Yinguangxia, one of the largest Chinese companies. 

These Caijing articles generated wide attention and led to the ousting of high public officials, the prosecution of corporate leaders, reforms in China’s stock market – and to Hu being called “the most dangerous woman in China.”  

In November 2009, Hu and her colleagues left Caijingand formed Caixin Media Group, a Beijing-based media organization with multimedia platforms including four periodicals, online news portals, books, TV/video programs, conferences and mobile applications. 

With Hu as editor-in-chief, Caixin has carried investigative reports on corporate fraud and government corruption, including the sale-for-adoption of children

confiscated by family planning officials in Hunan province.

Hu’s journalistic style is balanced and strongly-researched, does not stir up emotions and keeps its eye on the issues rather than on personalities. Hu compares her journalism to the action of the woodpecker, “forever hammering at a tree, trying not to knock it down but to make it grow straighter.”