Archive » Pomfret describes work as foreign correspondent » Indiana University School of Journalism

Thomas Miller | Feb. 6, 2011

Photo by Thomas Miller

Washington Post correspondent John Pomfret talked about his reporting in China Thursday evening. He also has covered conflict in other countries and has served as bureau chief in Beijing and Los Angeles.

When John Pomfret was in high school, he wanted to be a neuroscientist. But his experience in college, including studying in China, led him to follow a path that has culminated in his reputation as a leading reporter on U.S.-China relations.

The Washington Post correspondent talked about the evolution of his career Thursday afternoon in the Ernie Pyle Hall auditorium. His route was hardly a straight line, he said.

“A lot of this stuff is serendipitous,” Pomfret said of his career. “I think you have to make your own serendipity”

Pomfret started making his own luck accidentally, though, starting with a wild night out on the eve of an important interview with Stanford’s Volunteers in Asia program. He was rejected by the program, which he said was a good thing, as later that year he was presented with an opportunity to study in China, something Pomfret described as “the Holy Grail.”

He fell in love with China.

“I was in total heaven because it was so different from the experience I had had growing up as an upper middle class kid in Manhattan,” Pomfret said. In 2006, Pomfret’s book about that experience, Chinese Lessons, was published. It describes his formative experiences at Nanjing University.

He also he attended Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in 1983-84 as a Fulbright Scholar, researching the Cambodian conflict.

Still, though he’d had some college experience as a photographer, journalism wasn’t in his future. He said he stumbled into journalism after returning to the U.S. and started for the Associated Press in New York. Capitalizing on a young reporter’s experience and fluency in Mandarin, AP sent Pomfret to China to as a correspondent. When he arrived, he realized a lot had changed.

“In 1982, China was just beginning to wake up,” Pomfret said. “In 1988, it was fully caffeinated.”

As the political climate in China intensified, Pomfret continued to report from the country, including covering the uprising at Tiananmen Square, until he came under the eye of the Beijing police, who interrogated him for six hours.

“At the end of the six hour interrogation, they told me, ‘Mr. Pomfret, you are both uncooperative and unfriendly,’” said Pomfret

The experience of being exiled from his adopted country was traumatic for Pomfret. He went on to cover a series of wars and conflicts for the AP, including Bosnia, Rwanda and the Mideast. He then moved to the Washington Post, which sent him back to China. The country had changed again, he said.

“I found a third different country,” Pomfret said, “a country that had pretty much rejected its obsession with the United States.”

Pomfret eventually was the bureau chief in Beijing, then returned to the U.S. as Los Angeles bureau chief. He now is based in Washington, D.C., but continues to cover U.S.-China relations.

His experiences and writing about China have made him an expert in the field of US-China, said Scott Kennedy, director of IU’s Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business, which co-sponsored Pomfret’s visit.

Photo by Thomas Miller

Pomfret has cultivated a reputation as a reporter who can put U.S.-China relations in perspective, said Scott Kennedy of IU's Research Center on Chinese Politics and Business.

“We don’t rely on people like John,” he said. “We rely on John.”

Kennedy said Pomfret’s experience in China gives him an advantage over other foreign correspondents.

“He’s had a chance to go back to visit China at different stages,” Kennedy said. “Journalists tend to be parachuters and then hit the road. He’s there 24/7 and he’s an absolutely critical resource.”

Senior Kevin Wang, who grew up in Nanjing, China, said he found similarities between Pomfret’s life and his own.

“We both experienced culture shock,” Wang said. “We both had to get used to a new environment.” Wang said that he agreed with Pomfret that part of being a journalist was learning to understand new cultures.

After giving his lecture, Pomfret took questions. When asked about American media bias against China, Pomfret said reporting had improved because of the strengthened relationship between the two nations.

“Overtime, I think American reporting of China has become more fair,” Pomfret said. “I kind of pretend I understand the place better than the average guy.”

More: