Karolina Bloch, Class III
Zoom screenshot courtesy of Elise Hu
On February 10, 2021, TBLS’s Asian Student Alliance and the Brooklyn Latineer hosted a discussion with American broadcast journalist Elise Hu on Zoom. Hu answered students’ questions about her experience in the journalism field as an Asian American and as a journalist in general.
In addition to being an American broadcast journalist, Hu is the host of the TED Talks Daily podcast and was the NPR Bureau Chief for Seoul, South Korea, from 2015 to 2018.
The meeting started off with questions about Hu’s background and her experiences growing up. She was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, to a Taiwanese American mother and a Chinese American father, who was defected from China during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. She had a love for writing ever since she was eight years old, and it was then that she knew she wanted to be a journalist. In seventh grade, she grew interested in political news.
In eighth grade, she moved to Texas because of her mother’s job and attended Plano Senior High School. Only ten percent of the students in her high school were Asian, so she was a minority there. She was part of her high school newspaper club and got an internship at her local TV station. Because of that internship, she got to cover the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. This gave her a leg up when she was in college because it opened doors to other internships for her.
After graduating high school in 2000, Hu went to college at the University of Missouri. Hu recommends this college–the oldest journalism school–for anyone interested in journalism. According to her, it has an “excellent journalism program” and had an “excellent experience there.” Her family was very supportive of her desire to become a journalist. Her 20s were spent as a TV news reporter; she did live shots outside the courthouse and crime scenes. Then, in 2009, she was hired to do a startup called the Texas Tribune. In 2011, she was hired away to join NPR, which she is still attached to. In 2018, she covered the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Later in the meeting, students wanted to know more about journalism itself and the racial makeup of its field. Hu confirmed that it is risky business going into her field because it is very competitive. When asked about its racial makeup, Hu said, “We’re having a reckoning now about race and social justice, obviously, but journalism has been resistant to do that because it is so white at the top.”
As an Asian American and a minority in journalism, Hu was asked about her specific experience going into the journalism field. She responded “There’s this idea of scarcity” since there were not many Asian Americans in the field. Hu said that if she were applying to be a host of morning edition news and there was already an Asian host, her mind would automatically go, “Oh, the Asian spot’s already taken.” According to her, this creates a sense of competition between Asians in journalism.
Then, Hu was asked about her experience in journalism as a woman. Drawing from her experience as a woman when she was working in South Korea, she said that there is not much of a racial difference in South Korea, and the divide of society is based more on gender. According to Hu, in South Korea “a man’s place was so assumed and a woman’s place really had to be earned.” When she was the Bureau Chief for NPR there, many men asked to meet with her boss and were very surprised when she told them that she was the boss. They could not wrap their minds around the fact that a woman, especially a pregnant woman at the time, was the boss. Still, Hu claimed that she is glad to have that eye-opening experience because she can now write about it. In fact, she is working on a proposal for a book about this.
Next, Hu was asked “What’s the biggest tip you wished you had known when you first got started?” Hu responded, “Always look for mentors.” She stayed in touch with journalists she admired such as former bosses and retired reporters. She studied their writing style, learned from it, and reached out to them directly asking for advice. This was very helpful for her.
Lastly, Hu was asked how she makes her writing unique. She replied, “It has to be in your own voice … I try to write like I talk.” She also mentioned that “clear writing comes from clear thinking,” so she always brainstorms before putting anything to paper. On a final note, Hu, a popular journalist today, said, “I still love it and I still have the privilege of being paid to do it, so I am not stopping yet."
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