Nowhere To Call Home
Jocelyn FordBeijing-based radio correspondent and filmmaker Jocelyn Ford has been a pioneer in giving a voice to marginalized groups and pushing for media freedom in East Asia for three decades.
She served for over ten years as Tokyo and Beijing bureau chief for U.S public radio’s premier national business show, Marketplace, and her reporting has been heard on a wide range of U.S. programs, including Radio Lab, The World, On the Media and Studio 360.
But her favorite way to glean insights into a country is to work for local media.
In Tokyo, as the first foreigner in the prime minister’s press corps for Japan’s Kyodo News, she persistently challenged unspoken taboos. Her reporting on the WWII “comfort women” was a catalyst for the Japanese government to acknowledge a role in WWII forced prostitution.
In 2001 Jocelyn broke through barriers to become the first foreigner to co-produce and co-host China Radio International’s first live drive-time news show. There she got an inside view of China’s state-run media, and experienced a self-criticism session following her failure to heed state censors while reporting on 9/11.
Jocelyn has chaired the Foreign Correspondent Club of China’s media freedom committee and was a key strategist in the lobbying effort to reduce government controls on foreign media.
Her professional honors include an Overseas Press Club, a National Press Club award and a Jefferson Fellowship from the Hawaii-based East West Center. “Nowhere To Call Home” is her first feature-length documentary.