The realities of covering news in countries such as China, Thailand and Myanmar are covered in the launch of the Judith Neilson Institute’s News in Asia report.

Authors Cherian George (Hong Kong), Gwen Robinson (Bangkok) and Louisa Lim (Melbourne) join host Gina Chua of Reuters in New York, for a live online conversation next Wednesday, September 22 at 10am AEST.

Executive director Mark Ryan says the new report tackles some of the toughest news landscapes for journalists to work in.

“Asia, by most measures, is at the centre of the world,” he says. “It is home to half the globe’s population; its economy is bigger than all other regions combined; it is a centre for technological innovation and growing cultural influence, and it is at the centre of the world’s greatest geopolitical competition, that between China and the US.

“News and analysis of what happens in Asia has become critically important, not just to Asia, but to the world. And to advance journalism in Asia we need a better picture of the news landscape in the region.”

The News in Asia report brings together some of the world’s leading experts and institutions to give a nuanced account of journalism in the region, dealing with everything from how it is produced and consumed to the obstacles it faces and the advances it is making.

Ryan says the obstacles faced by journalists rising to the crucial task of covering this influential region are significant – crackdowns on press freedom, shrinking newsroom budgets, intolerant populism, misinformation, social media monopolies, and a pandemic preventing movement in the very communities they need to cover.

“But this news landscape also has green shoots,” he says. “New media and innovative reporting approaches are successfully navigating crackdowns, while fact-checking is proliferating and audiences are becoming more aware about the information they consume.”

He says the report is an essential reference tool for anyone interested in journalism and the news media in Asia – from journalists and academics to civil society, policymakers and businesspeople.”

JNI’s goal is to make News in Asia a timeless and comprehensive resource, and thoughts and feedback are welcomed about the best way to make that happen.

For more information and tickets, contact the website

Singapore native Gina Chua is Reuters’ global managing editor of operations, and was previously editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, and a deputy managing editor at  the Wall Street Journal and editor of its Asian edition.

Cherian George, professor and associate dean for research at Hong Kong Baptist University’s School of Communication, was once a journalist with the Straits Times in Singapore.

Louisa Lim is acting co-director for the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. Her book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. She spent a decade as a foreign correspondent in China for the BBC and NPR, and is co-host of the Little Red Podcast, which won the news and current affairs category at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2018.

Gwen Robinson is editor-at-large of Nikkei Asian Review, and senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies of Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University and president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand. She has been a correspondent and editor with the Financial Times in Europe, Asia and the United States, and was most recently the Bangkok bureau chief covering Southeast Asia.

Pictured (top): Louisa Lim and Gwen Robinson; (above): Cherian George and Gina Chua