PLU alum breaking the news in China

By Du Huai De

In today’s China, things are changing – especially in the media. Dwight “Danny” Daniels ’79 is one of those helping establish freedom of the press in China.

Daniels has been an editor at China Daily, the national English-language newspaper based in Beijing, since September. Often called China’s most important newspaper, the paper has a daily circulation of 350,000, and is circulated in 150 nations across the globe. The online version (www.chinadaily.com.cn), which was China’s first news Web site when it was launched in 1995, generates millions of hits daily. Daniels, a former staff writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune and adjunct professor at San Diego State University, is among a handful of Western journalists in key editing roles there. He edits the front page, and international and national page stories. “I like the thrill of breaking news, like China’s effort to put a man into space,” he said. “That was a historic event here, with China in a frenzy about whether this was going to work. The adrenalin of putting that front page together was something I will never forget.’’ “It is worth it to throw out the paper’s front page at 1 a.m. and start over,” Daniels said. “If President Hu Jin Tao has suddenly called George Bush and told him something new about what he plans to do to help solve the nuclear crisis in North Korea, we start over.”

“I write about whatever interests me,” said Daniels. “From the ethical treatment of an escaped wild tiger, to the changing face of treatment of the elderly, to China’s first sexual harassment court cases. I take a Western perspective on China that may not occur to my (Op-Ed) colleagues.”

In a first for a Western-hired journalist, the paper invited Daniels to pen regular opinion columns. It is a labor of love for the member of the National Association of Opinion Writers who taught a course on opinion writing at San Diego State.

“I write about whatever interests me,” said Daniels. “From the ethical treatment of an escaped wild tiger, to the changing face of treatment of the elderly, to China’s first sexual harassment court cases. I take a Western perspective on China that may not occur to my (Op-Ed) colleagues.”

A couple of columns have been withdrawn by editors. One was on mining safety, in which Daniels suggested shutting down the nation’s mines for 48 hours to review safety. China loses dozens of miners each week in coal mine explosions, stories ignored by the international press. Another on starvation among children in North Korea proved too politically sensitive for editors to run, with six-party nuclear talks ongoing.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had pieces spiked and it won’t be the last,” he said. He also writes columns for the Shanghai Star (www.shanghai-star.cn), a less formal weekly where he can “really let my opinions fly.”

Adjusting to China has been easy, said Daniels, who traveled widely in a brief first career as an Air Force officer, and then as a reporter.

Daniels lives in a three-room, high-rise apartment just completed on the China Daily complex that overlooks Beijing and a major international university just across the street. He enjoys all the cultural opportunities and the relationships he has developed.

“My colleagues seem to respect my background,” he said. “I have developed close friendships quickly. It is amazing to me how open and warm the Chinese are. I have met wonderful people here, inside and outside the newspaper.”

He will teach in Beijing part-time at a local university in the fall. He also teaches reporting and writing seminars. Daniels, who wrote for The Mooring Mast as a student, fondly recalls some of the techniques he learned from PLU journalism professor Cliff Rowe and during his time writing for the student paper. “Cliff is the best teacher I ever had,” said Daniels, who earned an M.A. in journalism at the University of Missouri. “I remember him every time I walk into the classroom.”

Daniels says PLU alums planning China visits shouldn’t wait.

“Seeing the pace of change in China is spectacular. It is truly opening up. I plan to be here through the Olympics (in 2008),” he said. “My Chinese (language) is pretty bad now, but it should be a lot better by then.”

Du Huai De is a writer in Beijing.