 and a good evening. You can go to love in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to love in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German or Turkish or Japanese. But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to love in America and become an American. We'll come back to a nation of immigrants, a bi-weekly interview program featuring the lives of the immigrants, knowledge, diversity, and inclusion. Created by Sing Tank Hawaii, Kingsfield Law Office, and U.S. China Cultural Media Group. Our guests share their life stories, journey to the United States, and their contributions to cultural diversity. Today's guest is Vivian Wu, founder and the CEO of Mighty Voice, Dasheng Media. Welcome, Vivian. Hi. Hi. Nice to see you on the screen. Thank you for having me here. Our pleasure and honor. Thank you, Vivian. You are my favorite investigative journalist, but now you are a founder and the CEO of a company in New York. You are a seasoned media industry professional with 20 years of experience in journalism, international reporting, and media innovation in both English and Chinese markets. Currently, you are the founder and the CEO of Mighty Voice, AKA Dasheng Media, a New York-based cultural and creative content production corporation. At Mighty Voice, you lead a global team of media professionals and tech experts spearheading the development of groundbreaking model of community journalism. It's a very impressive resume, Vivian. Even I know you're very well, but you have constantly surprised me with your innovation and your adventure. And first, could you share with our audience that the pivotal moments that led you to relocate to the United States and establish a company in New York City? Okay. Thank you for the nice work, Chang. You know me well. So put my background very briefly. I really spent like 20 years in the media field, but I spent years in newspaper. I started my career from 2003 when China was actually seeing a very prosperous, very inspirational period of journalism production, market change, and, you know, progressive era. So I was lucky that I did a lot of story. I accumulate a lot of skills, but I changed my job several times. I moved from Beijing to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to New York, and New York to London. So after years of working in the field, I realized, okay, I'm lucky that I accumulate extensive experience. But I also see the change of media landscape, change of technology, change of people's habits. Actually, there are many pivotal moments. I see how people's habits of absorbing information was innovated by the application of social media. Also, it was changed by the TikTok, a short video on YouTube. And at the same time, you see the diminishing of high quality content, especially if you, like me, I work as a bridge. It's like I try to tell China's story to the world, but also I try to bring the global perspective to the Chinese audience by switching the languages. So I feel like, okay, there are several moments. I feel, okay, first I really need to do something to change the vision, to change the vision about media shared quite about public. Also, I need to, I realize too long in the institutional media, you'll find on one side there are a lot of online celebrities, a lot of individual voices. They might not be very professionally trained, but they have a chance to voice out. But in the meanwhile, the public suffered the deteriorated quality of content and there was misinformation, disinformation, polarization of public opinions. People refused to talk to each other. On the other side, you'll find, okay, there are professionals, but they don't have a chance or platform to use that to better help the public to make better decisions. So this is a professional thinking pattern. And of course, in my personal period, in my personal dimension, the pivotal moment once was, I see China Xi Jinping changing his constitution and China basically publicly announced that they don't need to learn from the outside world anymore. They have their own system of value system, professional level system, even definition of democracy and freedom, etc. So on the other side, you'll find, okay, Trump became a president and then there are a lot of drama, a lot of protests in Hong Kong. The world needs more rational voices, but also they need a more individual platform that can address individualized needs. So all this, all these facts, elements, historical changes forced me to think, okay, I'm at a pivotal juncture. I need to change that to harness my accumulated skills while embracing the freedom that can empower me to innovate and address more specific needs, both from the public, but also by myself. So I don't know if I answer a question, but it's like a long journey in the media field, how technology changed people's lives. You see how the public suffered, you know, Western quality of journalism, the public needs a better way of doing journalism publication, etc. And you also see the social political changes, both on the two sides of the Pacific Ocean. You see, okay, it's time for change, but where to start? Let's start by relocation, start by doing a new platform that I can somehow design, control, also fast to develop without any baggage I see in the institutional media. You answer the question very well, both professionally and personally. I'm particularly intrigued by your mention of the quality content. Now we are living in this very saturated information time and bombarded by TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, you name it. But the need for quality content couldn't be more urgent. And so you primarily gather your insights and updates, where do you gather this information? Because when I work with my students, I always ask them that, where do you get your information? And tell me the primary sources of your information, is traditional media, print, digital, or social media. And so my question to you as a professional, obviously, is this question more relevant to your work? So where do you primarily gather your insights and updates about ongoing developments, both in the United States and in China? And the second question is, how do you ensure the reliability and the integrity of those resources? Obviously, you have your judgment about what considered reliable sources, but sometimes even mainstream media, they've been confused by misinformation and disinformation. A very relevant and important question. Actually, when I was working as a manager at BBC, if I was doing recruitment, we must make a question, what do you read, and what's your source? So let me share how I start my day and how I form my reading habit. It's like, it's very, very important first to sit in the middle, and you need to make sure that you have diverse sources of information. That being said, it's actually hard, because as you said, people confuse. And usually, if you are not professional, and you don't have a checked list of verified information, reliable source, it's very, very easy for you to trust, mistrust something, and it's just retweeted or repost it either on WeChat or Twitter. And actually, you are part of this relay of misinformation. And then we see actually wrong information go viral. So how to make sure that I read good information? I usually, I spend, I start my day, first I have many, many apps installed on my phone, but I have two phones. I have one phone following the China's apps and and your related Chinese or traditional Chinese, because I also monitor Hong Kong, Taiwan, and domestic Chinese media outlets. So this very diverse source of information can help me to verify any information if it's to do with China policy, for example. But this is just a one layer of Chinese reading. And of course, I have, I followed many good quality, even though there's still a censorship issue, but there's still somehow verified source of big news or local news. For example, Cai Xin, Cai Jing, there are some, or Xinhua, actually, when I mentioned Xinhua agency, because there's a monopoly of official information. Of course, that's a fact that's suffered by the journalism industry. That means, all the authentic information to do with top authority or governmental behaviors were not monopolized by the state's media. So even though you don't like the narrative, you still need to follow what Xinhua has said. Or a lot of information was released by CCTV or their state-owned outlets. And you also have a layer of local news. And they have their WeChat accounts. They have, but don't forget, there are actually a whole range of public intellectuals or journalists or retired journalists that they have this effect checking habits. So you always need to cross-exam one single information. And if I see a piece of story on any platform, I try to find three more sources. And I always try to find the original source if that story was quoting somebody's facts from that original source. English side. And then this is the first one or two hours of my day. I just have a navigation what's really going on. And then I need to quickly decide, oh, if this is Chinese news, how the world will see this. And of course, in the meanwhile, in the parallel, I actually have apps installed on my another phone, American phone. We have CNBBC, New York Times, New Yorker, Economist, FT, you name it. And also, you need to follow verified accounts of journalists, the same tank, all the government's official accounts on Twitter if they have. And of course, always, always try to find the original source of that fact. So what I'm saying here is people need to, as individuals, even though you're not professional, you need to have this habit of fact checking. We are suffering from this echo chamber problem. Especially this echo chamber was enhanced and was actually repeated by the social media. That means if you just follow 50 people in your circle, then you are always taken for granted that, okay, if this story is shared by my friend, without any hesitation, I'll be thinking, I will repost it. But as I said in the beginning, you are then probably part of this disinformation redistribution game. So always, always double check, even though this information is shared by your neighbor, only if that neighbor is your, is an investigative reporter. But even though you still cannot take for granted, that's true, you still need to double check. So what I'm saying is like, if you have this habit of cross-examining, always, if you read several languages, it's always important to check the source from the original country's local verified media outlets. And then if you could, check with your local friends. And then I think then you will have a very clear navigation of what's really going on. And then of course, we talk about the topics or other stories that as a media professional needs to address. Yeah. So this is just a way of thinking and having. Yeah, I see. I found a lot of, thank you for sharing the very insightful observation and some of the professional workflow of gathering information. I found some similarities between our works that when you always go back to the original source and for the legal practice, and we always start, we can start with the secondary sources, but at the end of the day, we must go back to the primary source. And always any argument must be substantiated and any evidence must be corroborated. And I also intrigued by you mentioning of the parallel universe and echo chamber, also known as echo chamber, but it feels like inevitable and we are living in parallel universes. I'm not only talking about people in different countries, geography, living in different parallel universes, but also even you and my neighbor and I can live in parallel universe. And it's the same family member in the same household. If one is follower of Fox News, the other is MSNBC. Obviously, two of them live in completely different universe. And so my question, you are leading Russian media and the mighty voice, and it just stands out pretty quickly. I congratulate you for marvelous, your remarkable achievement in a short period of time. And this is a huge media landscape and you are navigating in, even you have a very strong team and you have a years of experience and you are in New York, you are 100% New Yorker right now. So there must be challenges to you. There must be obstacles and how to stand out, how to, you know, the subtitle of our show today is Mighty Voice Be Heard. And you want to be heard and we hear you, but how can you ensure that your company can distinguish from other media outlets and continue to engage and the audience. And basically the question at the end of the day is how can you make your voice well heard and distinguished from other voices? Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think our biggest challenge is actually people's attention. It's a computation for attention. People are busy with their social media, chatting, messaging, applications. It's very hard to drag people out of their comfort zone and grab their attention. So how to do this? I think first, even though the market is busy, but you see a lot of professionals giving up their jobs. I mean, I'm saying this, we see in America or a free society, there's a continuous layer of professionals. Media industry is fading off because of the high tech, because people's change of, you know, change of people's habits of grabbing information, people would rather use social media than reading the high quality professionals journalism. So what I'm also, this is even more important and more prominent in Chinese sphere. So I've done both in English-Chinese. I decided we have three strategies. First is we give a very refreshing, very strong, prominent branding of our values. So our mission is we create a space for freedom, decency, and the beauty. It sounds interesting, but also different because we don't talk about freedom speech, we don't talk about democracy. It's not the cliché you will find from the international media or no local Chinese media will talk about the freedom openly like us. So we're afraid that means we don't have self-censorship, we don't have censorship, we uphold the freedom that we really take it seriously. It means nobody can, you know, nobody can shake up our independence. And we highlight, we are very, very very strict with our quality. That means we are very carefully, we're very carefully choosing the topic of our stories. We are very strict with quality. You see the professional image, design, narrative, fact-checking. We also have very comprehensive and aggressive social media strategy, even though we have a very, very small team, but we have this young kids, young people who are very dry, who are very driven to do something different. They are bored by the status quo. So we are very aggressive, also very diligent on social media. And then people immediately get, oh, this is a very refreshing image. And look at their stories. Wow, the stories are very relevant. We address most important issues not only in the free world, but also in China. And we also highlight our global vision. This is so important because imagine China is now getting more and more close that they are more isolated from the outside world, but actually demand for, you know, global vision of narrative, a wider range of topic selection. And also like Qing Liu is like selected, sophisticated, intellectual. But we don't sound arrogant. We are very relatable. We are very approachable. Even our design, our branding is designed by young girls. She's universally beautiful. She has a very good artistic sense. So we try our best to stand up to give you a sense of this is a decent, free, high quality professional platform that you can be yourself. Because we are not arrogant. We make sure that all the topics we choose are relatable. We try to echo people's, you know, the soft points, your pain points. Then people need such a new platform. People need such new voice. People are very bored by unrelatable, somehow arrogant, too remote address of China issues if you read international headlines, even though they're good stories, but it's just not that approachable. Or people are bored by the trash on social media. We have to say this. It's like a talk change people's habits. People are very impatient, but high and good quality content actually is proven to be needed. Then I'm trying to address that need. So now I can be very proud to say Dasheng really has very good reputation among our professional peers. And I also want to say it's like, I am pretty sure every tweet, every story, every video we produce, you won't, as a reader, as an audience, you won't be regretful if you share that. You will be proud to say, hey, let me recommend this story. Read it. You won't feel like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to, I don't, I want every reader and every distributor of our story being same pride as we are. So if you feel proud of something, of course, you will be very enthusiastic sharing it. It's what I see every day. It's like I'm approached by my friends, my audience, my readers, they say, great, Dasheng,加油, add oil, do it well. So I don't know if I answered your question. You did. Splendid, splendid. It's your voice, Dasheng's voice is very refreshing. And in the current media landscape is such a pleasant surprise. And it's so reassuring to see that you are bringing fresh air to the media landscape. I really appreciate that. And we are almost running out of time. But I do have so many questions I want to ask you. We have to invite you back to the show. But let's switch to a lighter side. And I have three quick questions for you. The first one is, who is your favorite journalist? And worldwide, do down the limit to the America or in China? Second question is about time travel. If you're a young lady, but if time travel permitted, you could travel back to your early 20th fresh out of college. What wisdom you could share with a younger self? And a lot about the not list. Is there a particular book or a TV program or movie you recommended to our audience? Three quick questions, please. Okay, all great questions. Let me try to answer. Actually, for the first question, who are my favorite journalists? There are too many. Because remember, I spent 20 years. So basically, I need like a constant reboost. I need a constant push in my back. And I feel motivated. But I can name several like of course, you know, Ariana Farachi. Farachi, you know, Ariana Farachi, she's a role model. But the more the older guys, especially the more I am driven to be a female leader, I realize she's a very, she's a badass. She's not afraid of being tough. But also her pieces, she's never afraid of challenging the strongest and the toughest, but she always tried to get the questions out. So I'm always inspired by her, both for the technique and the, you know, personal style of working. But I'm not that tough as she was. I'm not that tough. I'm trying to. So also like a journalist from New York Times, such as Chris Buckley. Oh, yeah. He's so good because he's so diligent. He's studying Chinese. He always sends some sentences out so well. In English, you'll see Bingo, this guy knows China better than me. So you then, you know, also she he, if he was writing for some obituaries, for example, he spent the years studying one persona. This is very special, very original, inspirational. And for the book, of course, the first book came into my mind, George Orville's 1984. Yes. Never gets outdated. Never gets old. And I somehow realize, is this a function, is this a fiction or nonfiction? It's nonfiction. It's nonfiction. It's nonfiction. And for the movie. Time travel. Time travel. If I was talking to me back to 20 years younger, I would say stick to your stick to the principles, stick to the values. You're, you're right. You're not wrong. It's hard to be different. But if you carry on your C by the other side of your journey was C, you're probably one of the very few, but you're right. So don't be afraid of being yourself. Yeah. Yeah. What wonderful answers to, to the short questions. And thank you so much for the time of the end. Again, as I said, I've been constantly amazed by your achievement and by the fresh air you bring to the media landscape. And I will continue to, to watch your accomplishment and congratulate you for the new website and new media outlets you have achieved so much. As we said in your New Yorker, I'm still a Minnesota, but as we said in Minnesota, be well, do good work and keep in touch. Thank you, Vivian. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for the time. Thank you for the nice work. Thank you. Aloha.