Taipei, Taipei City, Taiwan
David is the director of the China Media Project, an independent research project specializing in the study of the Chinese media landscape both within the PRC and globally, as well as the specialized media and political discourse of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Now based in the United States, with a research hub in Taipei, Taiwan, the project was first launched in 2004 as a research and fellowship program at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre (“HKU Journalism”), responding to the need for specialized research and engagement around developments in the Chinese media landscape. David is the co-author of Investigative Journalism in China, which offers a comprehensive, first-hand look at investigative reporting in China, including insider accounts from reporters behind some of China’s top stories from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. He is also the author of Dragons in Diamond Village, a book of nonfiction stories on urban villages and urbanization in China. (No, this is not another China book with a dragon in the title — but a book in which the dragon boats are culturally grounded and significant.) His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Diplomat, Index on Censorship, Far Eastern Economic Review, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. He received a Human Rights Press Award in 2008 for an investigative piece for the Far Eastern Economic Review on China’s use of professional associations to enforce Internet censorship guidelines. David was also co-recipient of a Merit Prize in Commentary in 2007. His areas of expertise include Chinese media, political reform in China, and social change and urban migration in China. David's film production debut, GHOST TOWN, premiered at the New York Film Festival in September 2009. His first feature film, THE HIGH LIFE, premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2010, winning both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Digital Award. THE HIGH LIFE, which also won the Fassbinder Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival in November 2010, was shown at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January 2011 and at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 2011. MY FATHER'S HOUSE, a documentary film on the African population in Guangzhou, premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2011.