In Taiwan, the saying goes that if you don’t study hard, you end up working as a reporter. But even if the career is not highly sought after in Taiwan, Alicia Chen says she was determined from a young age to become a journalist.
The 31-year-old has built a career specializing in stories of forced migration, social movements and human rights. Her latest accolade is the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, granted by the International Women’s Media Foundation, or IWMF.
“Out of more than 100 applicants, we were deeply impressed by Alicia’s dedication to bringing light to political repression and injustice,” said IWMF executive director Elisa Lees Muñoz.
Now in its 20th year, the fellowship is named for Neuffer, a Boston Globe correspondent who was killed while on assignment in Iraq in 2003.
Chen was only 10 when Neuffer died, but she said, “I became inspired by her dedication to covering war crimes, as well as her on-the-ground coverage of war.”
“This fellowship means a lot to me, not only to be able to carry on her experience and courage, but also to share similar values and visions with other remarkable fellows who have been dedicated to covering human rights and injustice,” Chen added.
Tense time
The reporter noted that the timing of the fellowship comes amid tensions between her home in Taiwan and China.
“As a Taiwanese journalist, it is also very important to see what roles [I] can play, not just in what happens, but how to prevent war from happening,” said Chen.
Still, she said, Taiwan is a “safe haven” for journalists compared with other parts of the world.
“It is much harder and more dangerous to be in countries like Mexico, India, Myanmar, you name it,” she told VOA.
China also presents a risk to those reporting from the country, and Chen said she has followed the cases of several journalists who have experienced these dangers firsthand.
Sophia Huang Xueqin, a Chinese independent journalist whom Chen admires, was recently sentenced to five years in jail on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” Huang had been involved in the #MeToo movement and had used social media as a platform to highlight sexual harassment cases.
And one of Chen’s editors, Li Yanhe, was taken by the police after he traveled to China in 2023. She said she was not sure where he is now or what his condition may be.
China is one of the biggest jailers of journalists globally. As of late 2023, at least 44 were detained there in connection with their work, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“Taiwan has become a safe haven for journalists and human rights, but at the same time we are on the front lines of protecting press freedoms,” said Chen.
The journalist’s work has been featured in outlets including The Washington Post, Al Jazeera English and The Guardian.
She also reported for Chinese-language media including The Reporter and Initium Media. There, she covered such issues as psychological support for war survivors in Ukraine and Chinese immigrants crossing the Darien Gap, a stretch along the Colombia-Panama border used as a migration route.
Reports on fishing crimes
In 2020, Chen participated in a cross-border reporting project on global fishing crimes, which later won two Society of Publishers in Asia awards for environmental and investigative reporting.
“It is a privilege to be a journalist from Taiwan, but at the same time we are trying to protect this level of freedom in the region and also hopefully provide safe space for journalists from other countries to be able to do their reporting on human rights violations in their own countries,” she said.
With the opportunity to report and study during this fellowship, she hopes to cover those with fewer rights than she has.
As part of the fellowship, Chen will spend four months working for The Boston Globe and two months at The New York Times. During that time, she will also attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's International Studies Center. There, she plans to take courses on topics such as the role of women in war and to connect with faculty who have research experience on regional security, all with the goal of improving her reporting.
Throughout the fellowship, her three areas of focus will be war reporting, international affairs and geopolitics, and human rights, with an emphasis on refugees and displacement.
“We’re looking forward to seeing her grow her breadth of reporting and research on these topics throughout her work with the Times and the Globe, as well as at MIT,” said the IWMF’s Lees Muñoz.
For Chen, she hopes the fellowship will help further her coverage and equip her “with the skills to conquer human rights abuses.”
