Rebecca MacKinnon was formerly CNN’s Tokyo bureau chief and correspondent, responsible for the global news network’s coverage of Japan. MacKinnon covered major events in Japan, Korea, Pakistan and the Philippines. She traveled frequently to South Korea to cover developments related to the North Korean nuclear standoff, and visited North Korea five times during her career at CNN. Previously, MacKinnon served for more than three years as CNN’s Beijing bureau chief, responsible for the network’s coverage of China. She joined CNN in Beijing in 1992 as a producer, and began reporting on-air for CNN in 1996. Before moving to Beijing to work for CNN, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, where she also worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications, including Newsweek. MacKinnon is fluent in Chinese. Originally from Tempe, Arizona, MacKinnon graduated magna cum from Harvard, where she majored in government. Ms. MacKinnon will examine the issue of whether new technology and new media can be used to create better journalism.
The World-Wide Conversation: Online Participatory Media and International News
January 1, 2004
A paper by Rebecca MacKinnon, spring 2004 fellow, explores how – and to what extent – the Internet and new interactive forms of online media might provide solutions to serious problems in the media, such as lack of international news in the mainstream media, lack of incentives for commercially-driven media outlets to provide international news,
