Colum Murphy: From globe-trotting journalist to entrepreneurial fellow
Colum Murphy has spent most of his life abroad chronicling politics and economic issues from around Asia.
A former China correspondent with The Wall Street Journal and past deputy editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, Murphy journeyed last year through the heartland of China for a bilingual multimedia project for Sixth Tone, a Shanghai-based digital media site.
The Ireland native is currently an entrepreneurial journalism fellow at CUNY’s Tow-Knight Center in New York where he’s exploring new ways to showcase in-depth, narrative-driven stories from and about contemporary China.
He recently shared some highlights from his career and thoughts about the future of journalism.
How did you break into journalism?
It was the early 1990s, when I was a graduate student in Japan. I got a part-time job with the Nikkei Weekly, the English-language newspaper of Japan’s leading business publication, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
I would come in just before the paper went to print to help with proofreading and last-minute fact checking. I fell in love with the newsroom immediately. I was in awe of my colleagues who were incredibly smart and I loved the thrill of knowing about news events ahead of my friends.
There was no full-time job for me when I graduated so I went to work at a Japanese bank. It wasn’t until a decade later that the pull of news finally got me. I went back to grad school — this time at Columbia University — and underwent a career makeover.
My first real job in journalism was as a cub reporter on the metro desk of Hong Kong’s The Standard. In a quirky twist, I ended up back at Nikkei some 25 years later when I did a short stint as an editor for its Nikkei Asian Review.
What’s been your favorite assignment so far?
Traveling the Hu Line (an imaginary line that divides China) in an SUV took 5,500 kilometers and five weeks to complete and was among the top highlights of my journalistic career to date.
Along the way, we met hundreds of people: poor garlic farmers in Dali whose livelihoods are under threat from tougher anti-pollution measures; a group of Christians in Inner Mongolia praying that they government would finally allow them to build a new church; ethnic Tibetans in Sichuan coming to terms with changes to their lives foisted on them by the advent of tourism and infrastructure development.
You’ve been both a reporter and editor. Which hat do you prefer wearing?
I enjoy doing both. On the one hand, it’s great helping conceptualize a story and helping the team identify the different elements and assisting them with planning how to execute the story.
But it’s also good to get back into the field from time to time, as it helps keep one’s reporting skills sharp. It also fosters a better understanding of the realities our reporters face on a day-to-day basis.
Just before coming to New York, I squeezed in one final reporting hurrah. I went back to Inner Mongolia for about a week in November to see how small dairy farmers there are coping a decade after a major milk contamination scandal shook China’s dairy industry.
What do you hope to get out of the Tow-Knight fellowship?
There is ample scope for compelling, human-focused storytelling from China … (I’m) working on a prototype website focused on telling China stories in an even deeper and more personal way than anything that currently exists.
The lineup will include reportage, personal essays, memoir and travelogues, and stories will include translations from Chinese as well as ones originally written in English.
The program at CUNY’s J-school will allow me the space to build this project, incorporating the latest thinking on digital media as well as providing insights into business models that can help make my website commercially sustainable.
How has journalism changed in your time?
When I was at Columbia, the big decision at the outset of the course was whether to specialize in print or broadcast. Since then, the range of platforms has increased enormously and reporters are expected to at least be competent across all platforms.
Add to that the constant emergence of new social media platforms and tools for journalists — I would say that the craft of journalism is becoming increasingly complicated.
I think having more tools is fantastic and the potential is enormous. But we mustn’t get lost in the noise and remember the importance of core reporting skills. It must be about finding and telling a good meaningful story.
Who are your inspirations?
In my personal life, my mother still serves as my main inspiration. She came from a small farming family in Ireland and left for the city when she married my father. She raised nine children, and though times were tough, she always understood the value of education. Because of that, I’ve been able to learn throughout my life and it’s part of the reason why I find myself, once again, a student.
Professionally, I would have to mention my teachers at Columbia, such as the late Donald “Pete” Johnston and the late Judith Crist, both of whom were old-school journalists who strictly taught the rules of American-style journalism.
They helped give me a framework for understanding the world of journalism. And while much has changed in how we work these days, much of these core elements remain unchanged.
[This is part of a series of peer profiles introducing the 2018 class of Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism fellows at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.]
