Screening: ‘Tiananmen Square’

Tiananmen Square is the latest episode of the Assignment: China series. It focuses on the work of journalists covering the massive demonstrations that rocked Beijing in spring 1989. Through interviews with those journalists as well as officials and demonstration leaders as well as archival photos and video, the documentary shows how the demonstrations and the violence that ended them drew unprecedented and sustained coverage. That coverage did much to shape perceptions of China and its government and helped influence the response of the US and other governments to the bloody crackdown. Assignment: China is produced by the USC U.S.-China Institute. Mike Chinoy, CNN’s Beijing bureau chief 1987-95, wrote and narrates the episode.

Mike Chinoy was the Senior Fellow at the USC U.S.-Institute and CNN’s Senior Asia Correspondent. After joining CNN at its London bureau in 1983, Chinoy served as Beijing Bureau Chief from 1987 to 1995. During that time he covered the 1989 events at Tiananmen Square, earning the CableACE, duPont and Peabody awards. He was also Hong Kong Bureau Chief for five years. He taught at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and ran the School's Hong Kong summer program 2007-2009. From 2006-2009 he was Edgerton Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy.