COVID-19 China: Emily Feng Talks About Her Experience Covering Covid-19
Emily Feng is a Beijing-based international correspondent for the National Public Radio (NPR) - an American media organization. We asked Emily how she has been keeping up as a journalist in the midst of COVID-19.
“When the outbreak first began everyone, including journalists, were not aware of how contagious this disease was and how it was being transmitted exactly. That open-endedness and lack of knowledge about the virus only contributed some anxiety in reporting on this and making reporting trips were still possible in the beginning of the outbreak like January and early February,” she said.
Emily further added that as the only NPR correspondent in China, she had to work day and night for several weeks at a time without taking breaks or weekends.
“This wasn’t limited to just me but other journalists and outlets, as well. That’s just the nature of the job. Sometimes there will be a breaking story and you will have to work for four, five or six weeks at a time without taking a day off. Journalists and editors need to be mindful that they should be taking breaks when they can because there can be breaking news that will suck up a couple of weeks of your life,” Emily responded when asked about coping with the mental and physical exhaustion of reporting the virus from China.
As the virus turned aggressive across China, journalists had to restrict their mobility following self-quarantine measures and social distancing. Emily, too, had to make difficult decisions and employ alternative ways to work on her stories. “I had to cancel all the trips and focus on reporting from Beijing. This meant sourcing a lot through Chinese social media, social networks, chat groups, and by getting people on the phone and talking to them for hours at a time everyday. You still can get a pretty good picture if it’s going on the ground. But it is not the kind of satisfying bootstrap reporting of actually hitting the streets and talking to people,” Emily said. She had to do a lot of phone reporting but lamented about the loss of immediacy. “I was often talking to people who had really tragic stories to tell but I was doing it over the phone with them, so I couldn’t even look them in the eye and show that I was connecting with them, listening to them, and felt for them, other than verbalizing it. It was very tough to be so removed from people who were suffering so greatly, taking their stories and publishing them without having that basic physical human interaction,” she said. In the midst of US-China tensions, Emily said that she is really worried about China’s crackdown on American journalists. She also highlighted threats that Chinese staff working for American outlets are facing uncertainty.
“Their Chinese staff will likely also start receiving more harassment and intimidation from the Chinese state parties and that will further obstruct foreign media outlets’ access to China and reporting in China,” she said when speaking with CFWIJ.
Emily said that she is already struggling to cover this story and appreciates having other outlets here. “Now we (English language media outlets) have fewer people on the ground in China at a very critical moment in the US-China relations and a global pandemic. And it’s really worrying to me that we don’t have as many people anymore to cover this, communicate what is going on and how it’s working to the rest of the world,” she said.
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