04 January 2006
Misrepresentation
The ink was barely dry on my contract when the plug was pulled on the investment, which the idiots had failed to secure formally before contracting to spend vast sums themselves, suddenly throwing the whole organisation into a frantic scrabble for alternative funding. Meanwhile I put together the first edition of the nationally distributed title under its new name, its distribution now limited to Beijing and Shanghai--plans for a Guangzhou office rapidly suspended.
What brought all this back to mind was a posting on Danwei, a blog discussing Chinese media.
Danwei says of itself: 'we publish fresh information about China that you won't find anywhere else.'
But on Dec 27 the site published a piece called 'People: Jo Lusby of the Penguin Group', contributed by one Jenny Niven.
This jolly little introduction to someone who worked at City Weekend when I was there contained some surprising information:
'She arrived in China in Nanjing in 1997, where she spent her first year teaching English to ‘surprisingly well-informed’ PLA students in the southern capital. A stint as an editor on a Financial Times-backed economic database followed, opening doors to the prospects of publishing in China. Unwilling to do things by halves, Jo set up her own English language magazine in Nanjing, which although had a relatively short print run, suffered no financial losses and alerted Beijing magazine City Edition to what Jo was up to. A few weeks later, she found herself being introduced to the Beijing staff as their new editor.
'Jo stayed at the magazine for five years, overseeing its transition from City Edition to City Weekend, watching as the city’s English language publications gradually transformed from local village rags to major city listings and entertainment magazines.'
As far as I recall from descriptions at the time, the Nanjing magazine only ran to two or three editions and was completely unviable. Be that as it may, Lusby did indeed join City Weekend a short time before I did, but as a junior member of the editorial staff under an editor who had been there for quite some time. He stayed on the editorial staff when I took over (which was at times a little uncomfortable, and not a situation I handled well), but I was in charge for the first issue under the new name, and thus responsible for 'overseeing its transition from City Edition to City Weekend', not Lusby.
This first Beijing and Shanghai edition carried a cover story I wrote on the return of three bronze heads of animals, originally looted from the 'Old' Summer Palace in 1860, in which I attempted to fill out some of the history of the heads which was being ignored in the nationalistic rantings the government was causing to be printed in the Chinese press, and to mock the supine repetition of some of that nonsense in the Western press which should have known better.
The then CEO and founder of the magazine was delighted with the story, and declared that the magazine was now far and away the best written of anything published in Beijing (not exactly a highly competitive field, however, so no particular credit here).
Unfortunately, a Chinese 'journalist' (lickspittle) picked up on the story, and decided to further his career with it. To cut a long one short, the Beijing Youth Daily, a popular Beijing newspaper, published a personal attack on me, beginning on its front cover. Four further stories in a similar tone were published, and things became rather hot for City Weekend, which utterly failed to support the story it had approved, and instead volunteered to publish one of these attack pieces in translation. So I found myself going up to Yuanming Yuan to direct the photography for a cover story in which the magazine attacked its own editor. Even before this blew up I'd decided that City Weekend was not something I wanted to continue with, and not to renew my initial short-term contract, although a newly-appointed CEO, a remarkably untrustworthy individual, swore he'd 'make me an offer I couldn't refuse', whose Godfather-like overtones seemed lost on him. But after all this the offer was quietly dropped, and so was I.
The previous editor returned to the helm and behaved rather tactlessly. Following him I believe there was yet another editor still. So, to return to the Danwei story, which seems to have Lusby sliding seamlessly from obscurity in Nanjing to supervising the transition from City Edition to City Weekend 'a few weeks later', she did nothing of the kind. In fact it was months later, when she was already well-known to staff, that she even became editor, when the weak and vacillating CEO, unable to keep his word or make his mind up on anything, chose someone he no doubt perceived as weaker and less threatening than himself, and who would be unable to prevent him from interfering with editorial content (in a way he'd promised not to do, of course).
Scanning notes and copies of email from the period I'm forcefully reminded of how weak Lusby's performance at City Weekend was, and although my own failings at leadership may have contributed to that, she would slide out of any task she could, was unable to meet deadlines, had no journalistic nous whatsoever, and was completely disorganised. Had I remained at the magazine, disciplinary action would not have been far in the future.
I wrote to Danwei off the record to point out the errors in the report, and expressed surprise that such an inaccurate puff piece was being posted on the site. And now we begin to see the difference between blogs and serious media, since the reply from the person who appears to be the site's main organiser was the brush-off "Perhaps that is so. I didn't write piece." I was however invited to contribute something to the site on this topic, but I declined. I suppose I thought that the site editors might themselves want to ask some questions of their contributor, and more generally:
1. Did Jenny Niven actually do any research for the piece?
2. Is the relationship between Niven and Lusby as distant as it should be?
3. Did Niven report Lusby's biography accurately from information she was given, and if so what exactly was the source?
4. Is there evidence here that Lusby in fact distorted her biography in presenting herself to Penguin?
My reply to Danwei's offer of space to comment was:
"I don't have any particular interest in sabotaging Lusby, but I'm
disappointed to see this kind of thing in print, even if only on a
blog/website. Isn't the point (or at least one off the points) of
Danwei to bring a little clarity to the muddy world of Chinese
'journalism'? But this is just more of the same, and hardly 'fresh
information about China that you won't find anywhere else'. And
that's a shame."
A subsequent quick search of Google shows that Niven was a contributor to City Weekend's pages during Lusby's time there, and so certainly someone who should not have been writing such a laudatory piece, as Danwei should surely have checked and questioned. This is like the worst of Chinese media, and Danwei should be ashamed of itself.
I forwarded the Danwei piece to someone who had been a City Weekend insider while Lusby was editor, and received the following reply:
'I haven't believed in a just God since I was 10.'
It's sometimes joked of the Chinese media that there's nothing true except the date. In fact all commentary on China, however trivial, needs to be read with great caution. Laziness and self-interest frequently cause the contagion to spread. When it comes to China misrepresention is the norm.
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4 comments:
As the "insider" Peter quotes in this post, I feel compelled to offer a qualification of the comment I made to him about the Danwei article on Jo Lusby as well as corroborate his complaints about it.
[Full disclosure: I've worked as a writer/researcher on four of the China guidebook titles Peter has edited, and am indebted to him for much professional guidance and help.]
I wrote two pieces for Ms. Lusby while she was editor of City Weekend, both in 2002, and had the chance to witness the inner workings of the magazine on several occasions while assisting my wife, then the editor of a business publication under the same shoddy management and in the same cramped office (this was in the post-tom.com period).
A late arrival on the scene, I can't personally confirm or deny accounts of Lusby's early career in China, or at City Weekend. Based on what I hear from Peter and others familiar with City Weekend around the time of its transition from City Edition, the magazine did indeed manage to climb briefly into realms of respectability--while under Peter's direction--but fell rather quickly back into mediocrity after the fracas in the Beijing Youth Daily. While I was not privy to the internal decision-making process, it seems a reasonable guess that Lusby was named editor during this period, not because she was the candidate most qualified to do the job, but because she was an easy and cheap internal hire. Such is the way of Chinese media, and increasingly of American media (if TIME magazine's recently closed Beijing bureau ever reopens, I'm willing to bet it will do so under a less experienced, and financially less "demanding," in-house reporter.)
What I can say with somewhat more authority is that the profile Niven has written about Lusby is a textbook reflection of the nepotism and laziness that run rampant in Chinese media. It is also a sad example of how foreign writers who work in that industry are all too willing to adopt the bad habits of the majority of their Chinese colleagues.
It is worth noting here that City Weekend did not exactly thrive under Lusby's direction. By the end of her tenure there, the magazine had clearly fallen behind it's rival that's Magazine both in terms of design and readability. [This is a qualitative and subjective judgement, to be sure, but one I share with many others.] Lusby probably doesn't deserve all the blame for this. Poor management at the publishing level and financial contraints also undoubtedly played a role.
Niven's article nevertheless fails to note this. Indeed, as Peter points out, the article fails to critically examine the story of Lusby's success in any respect whatsoever. Ms. Lusby was not the worst editor I worked for in China. But neither was she deserving of the praise implied in the Danwei article. Her editing of the pieces I wrote for City Weekend was average, concerned more with length than content and displaying none of the mature understanding of China Niven ascribes to her.
"It’s so exciting to be involved in an industry where there are so few rules of engagement," Lusby is quoted as saying in the Danwei piece, and I can't help but guffaw.
This is precisely the problem. With few rules of engagement--and, hence, few standards--foreigners working in Chinese media often rise to heights they would never reach in their home countries simply by virtue of having spent some time in China, their cultivation of the proper "guanxi," and their willingness to stay in the country at often substandard pay.
Now my comment about Lusby's rise to prominence in the world of China publishing being evidence against a just God certainly contains an element of professional jealousy. Among those of us who find China interesting, who wouldn't be jealous of a woman who managed to get her job at Penguin with such apparent ease? But it is a low sort of jealousy, common to the Chinese media context--a context so wide open as to be easily exploited and one in which "success" often consists simply in getting there first. I would take Lusby's job in a second, and I wouldn't feel bad about it.
But I would feel bad about presenting my success in unqualified terms.
The fault here, of course, does not lie with Lusby. She has a natural interest the promotion of her career and, at any rate, is not quoted in any overtly self-promotional manner. Nor, ultimately, does it lie with Niven, who appears to be doing what people in China often do for their friends.
Rather it is the editors of Danwei who should be ashamed. Professional puff pieces of this sort--often paid for by the subjects themselves--are precisely the kind of material one finds in the government press that Danwei purports to cover. If Danwei wishes to remain a credible critic of Chinese media in the future, it would do well to ponder what credibility means.
Isn't it also the fault of Penguin for being so naive?
Or perhaps so nepotistic...?
I cannot believe this article. Peter clearly has some real issues that he is not prepared to deal with - get a life! Even if the Danwei article is biased - why do you care? Jo Lusby (and I dont know her) is clearly talented and doing well. Peter just comes across like a bitter bitter person who can't give recognition where it is due. Your attack is scathing and personal, and comes across as totally unjustified. Shame on you.
This particular blogging software doesn't note the date on which comments are made, so perhaps I should point out that the one immediately above has arrived more than two years after the original post and the other comments that followed it.
I would not usually allow a comment so entirely devoid of content to appear here; one written apparently without consideration of either the tone or content of the original post, or one so overtly partisan and addressing none of the arguments set out, but only making incoherent attacks (although, thinking about it, the comment above it isn't much better). Had these remarks been aimed at a third party I wouldn't have allowed them to appear here at all, but it always seems to me that special leeway has to be given to criticism of the moderator, however absurd and ill-thought-out it may be.
I have no interest in nor knowledge of Lusby's current career, and perhaps she has finally found something she's good at and is making a great success of it. Since, and perhaps unlike the safely anonymous contributor above, I truly no longer know Lusby, I am unable to comment or 'give recognition when it is due' since I've no idea exactly what is due and what isn't. How can anyone who 'doesn't know' Lusby possibly comment?
But as her former boss it does seem to me I'm very well qualified to comment on her role at City Weekend during my time there, although this wouldn't have been worth comment at all except in the context of the Niven puff piece published on the Danwei site which misrepresented her achievements in China. It does indeed seem to me that credit should be given where it is due, but in this case it most definitely isn't due to Lusby. She was not in charge of editorial until long after the events and date suggested, and did not have the responsibility ascribed to her. This credit belongs with Jonathan Ansfield, myself, and at least one other.
Had I wished to attack Lusby personally I would merely need to have taken up the Danwei offer of space for a riposte, and given the high volume of traffic there, the site's public profile, and the interest being shown in Penguin's China activities at the time, there might well have been much public discussion as to whether Lusby put inflated claims on her c.v. to get the Penguin job, or whether the author of the piece, clearly far too close to its subject, was responsible.
Does it matter if Danwei has failed to follow basic editorial standards for honesty, disinterest, and accuracy in this case? Yes, it does, because it raises questions about the rest of Danwei's content, and its claim to be a source of different kind of comment on China.
It was honest to offer me space to point out its failings in this case, but I must admit I nevertheless cannot take the site seriously now, and rarely look at it. I don't believe I've since come across Niven's by-line anywhere else, but were I to do so I doubt I would consider the accompanying article to be worth reading.
So if there is any shame to be allocated here it's to Danwei (which may well have pulled its socks up since then), to Niven, and possibly to Lusby (who knows?), and certainly to safely anonymous commentators who fail to address arguments made, or bring facts to support their case. Friends of the various interested parties, whether they 'know' them or not, would probably be best to let sleeping dogs lie.
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