Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: The Iowan Bridging the Gap between Trump and Xi

Tourists wander through the Forbidden City on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017, in Beijing, China. Located in the center of Beijing, it is now a museum, but from 1420 to 1912 it was the center of the Chinese government. Image by Kelsey Kremer. China, 2017.

Tourists wander through the Forbidden City on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017, in Beijing, China. Located in the center of Beijing, it is now a museum, but from 1420 to 1912 it was the center of the Chinese government. Image by Kelsey Kremer. China, 2017.

Our Man in China

Kyle Munson and Kelsey Kremer

As President Trump makes his first official visit to China, The Des Moines Register launches a series of stories on the growing ties between the communist superpower and the American state of Iowa. Can U.S. ambassador and former Iowa governor Terry Branstad, who backed Trump for the presidency in 2016 and got tapped to be his Beijing envoy, bring China more in line with U.S. interests? Though Branstad speaks no Chinese, he’s not without credentials: As governor, he got to know Xi Jinping long before Xi became the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.

Global Reach

This week exemplified the Pulitzer Center’s extraordinary reach —in subject matter and distribution. Among the stories we supported: videos for AJ+ about Rohingya families fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar; a story in Elle on the challenges faced by a group of female surfers in Bangladesh; articles in the Los Angeles Times about Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas; a NewsHour segment from China on rural children growing up without their parents; a Science story on Iran’s nuclear program; an Atlantic article on Germany’s battles with Facebook; and a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about using math to predict disease outbreaks in Africa.

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