When an editor once asked Marian Chia-Ming Liu during a job interview why her career had been so “random,” the question triggered something deeply visceral.
“My first instinct, which I did not say, was like I did not have the fortune of being born into a privileged family that had connections,” said Chia-Ming Liu, Projects Editor for Strategic Initiatives with the Washington Post. She told NPF Widening the Pipeline fellows in June, “It has never been easy. I’m a child of immigrants. English, it was my second language. Everything I had to figure out, I had to figure out my own. Did not have parents that could guide me or drop me in a job. And I think that journalism is such a hard industry that I’ve had to evolve to stay afloat.”
Building that skill opened a broad range of career experiences for Chia-Ming Liu, from being a writer, music critic and editor at CNN in Hong Kong to working for publications including the Seattle Times, San Jose Mercury News and Source Magazine. She also launched a hyperlocal entertainment site and app for the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“I’ve had to evolve. I’ve done what it takes. I’ve learned different skills on the job, off the job, freelance, contracted, did whatever I could to make sure I stayed relevant and knew the newest skills. And so that’s why I took what I can and stayed, in order to stay and do what I love.”
As a member of the Post team that’s helping to identify new projects and initiatives that appeal to a broad range of audiences, Chia-Ming Liu has to juggle managing expectations from above with keeping true to her own vision.
“I am a journalist because that is part of my purpose, to very much represent the communities I come from, and that is female immigrant and Asian. And so that’s very important to me. But I also think it’s a careful balance of trying to represent and cover your community and not be pigeonholed.
That became very important during the wave of high-profile anti-Asian attacks that have occurred in recent years. While Chia-Ming Liu knew her perspective was valuable, she also pushed for better representation.
“We need more people around the room. It can’t just be me. It can’t just fall one person. It has to be even Pan-Asian because different experiences need to be represented.” Chia-Ming Liu is also working with the Asian American Journalists Association to develop a newsroom style guide about what terms are okay to use and what terms are not okay to use when reporting on Asian American communities. “Terms like ‘kung flu’ or even ‘incarceration’ instead of ‘internment.’ And instead of every time you see an article that has a racist term to send out a press release, this is a way so we can be proactive, like a guide for people to see when they’re writing the story what is okay and what is not okay.”
Access the full transcript here.
The Widening the Pipeline Fellowship is sponsored by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation and Lenovo. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
