Mr. Hein, you have been reporting from Asia for exactly ten years. How big is the area you cover?
At least half the world. On the one hand, we have China and India, Southeast Asia and Australia, the countries with the world’s highest growth rates; on the other, this is a region where most of the world’s poor live. I have to try to do justice to both. One thing that many people don’t know is that Asia is the region with the largest number of Muslims in the world. All this gives the region incredible diversity and a population of about three billion people: billionaires and slum dwellers, glittering metropoles and sweatshops, top design and natural disasters. When you follow the challenges facing the world in the 21st century, studying Asia is like looking through a magnifying glass.
What is your working day like? How often are you on the move?
I’m always surprised when I look at the calendar at the end of each year: I usually travel for more than half the year. For me as an economics correspondent, reporting currently focuses on China, of course, although India is becoming more important every week. Nevertheless, I also try to make it to countries like Laos, Mongolia, Timor Leste or Tibet whenever I can – so that we can offer our readers stories they don’t find in other media. Indeed, this is the point of having such a correspondent at all, even though it’s a major cost factor for a publishing company.
What has changed in your work over the past ten years as result of the new media?
They are a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, of course, they provide an additional source of information that we should make the most of. On the other, you have to be careful not to trust them too much. I make use of the time difference in my work to write news stories in my hotel after a day of research. The same information that we receive over the Web is also available to our colleagues in Frankfurt on their screens. This makes it all the more important for a correspondent to sift and evaluate it – to separate the wheat from the chaff for the readers and help them pick their way through the flood of news. You need on-the-spot experience to do this.
You report exclusively for a highly respected German daily newspaper. However, we often hear that the importance of newspapers is declining in the modern media world. How do you see the future of the daily newspaper, or the daily newspaper of the future?
Good newspapers have a trump card: they have experts who research, select and evaluate the news and reports. This means they have top-quality content at their disposal. The aim is then to offer this to the readers in the form they want. We have already noticed over the past few years how competition has been growing for newspapers. I don’t think they will die out, but they must become more closely geared to their target audience. We newspaper people need to be continuously questioning our own actions. At the same time we must offer the content we produce through more distribution channels, although no one has succeeded in making money doing this kind of thing so far. To this extent we certainly live in times of upheaval. In five, perhaps ten years’ time we might know how a newspaper’s content needs to be presented in way that is both satisfactory for the readers and profitable for publishers.
And what is the status of daily newspapers in Asian countries – also compared with other media?
That’s a hard question to answer in general terms. In my region there are some countries, like Burma (Myanmar) and China, where censorship prevails. Then there are countries like Singapore where the state does a lot to disseminate content. And others again, like India, where the printed word has always carried a lot of weight, where not a week goes by without a new newspaper or magazine coming onto the market. In addition to all this, of course, young middle-class Asians have a great affinity for the new electronic media; even school children spend hours on the Internet tweeting and using their networks. Yet there is no doubt that some newspapers make an important contribution to democratization, for example in Thailand, India and Indonesia. The Bangkok Post, the Nation in Thailand, the Jakarta Post in Indonesia are all examples of free, research-based journalism. On the other hand, a traditional magazine like the Far Eastern Economic Review – which has had an opinion-forming influence on people interested in Asia for 60 years – is closing down at the end of the year. So it’s important in Asia, too, to adapt to people’s reading habits more quickly than has been done up to now.
What have been your most exciting topics in recent years?
Viewed over a longer period, it has definitely been the rise of China and India, and comparing the different systems. In between, of course, there are plenty of highlights in this vast reporting area – my diary alone makes sure of that. They include interviews with government leaders or billionaires, and even more research in remote areas, which can be very exhausting. And, cynical as it sounds, seen through the eyes of the reporter the tsunami and the earthquake in Sumatra last October were, of course, among the great challenges. When such disasters occur, you have to function perfectly within a few hours, and start by getting a hold on the logistics. The tragedy itself doesn’t hit you till later.
You report from Singapore. What advantages does the city-state offer over other locations in the region?
Singapore is still suffering from its self-inflicted, false image. Ask anybody in Europe about the city-state today and they’ll start by criticizing the ban on chewing gum. Yet that law was revised a long time ago, and Singapore itself has changed a lot over the last ten years. Today, Singapore is a modern metropolis, a great place to live. The decisive thing for me is that everything here functions smoothly and very quickly. Above all, however, Singapore defines itself as a hinge between East Asia and South Asia. In other words, you can pick up a lot from both regions in Singapore. If you live in Shanghai, your focus is going to be mainly on China. If you’re based in Mumbai, organizing your daily life will take a lot of time. There is no other city in Asia that offers the same possibilities for someone who needs to keep his eye on the entire eastern hemisphere.
