Jia Jung was the 2022 Li Center for Global Journalism Fellow at 天美视频, a position supported by聽the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Institute for Nonprofit News. She reports on Philippine affairs for Filipino communities and interested readers in Hawaii and beyond.
Born and raised in Massachusetts to Korean parents, Jia鈥檚 journey to reporting on the Asia-Pacific region began at the University of California, Berkeley. She has lived and worked in the Marshall Islands, South Korea and India in addition to the mainland. Her portfolio includes stories for a variety of news outlets, including VICE Creators, PRI, The Korea Times, Atlas (Gastro) Obscura and Saveur.
Passionate about storytelling, characters and multimedia content, Jia has won story slams of The Moth organization and created podcasts about uncommon careers and life-changing songs. Prior to arriving in Honolulu, Jia produced a short documentary for Eastern Standard Times Media about Filipino-Korean farming families in the southernmost part of South Korea. The work was funded in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Jia鈥檚 most personal journalistic undertaking is a work-in-progress biography of her late father, who was a street child during the Korean War era.
An avid open-water swimmer who circumnavigated Manhattan Island to close out a 12-year-long chapter in New York City, Jia looks forward to working toward waterwoman status while exploring the islands. She also hopes to build upon seven years of Tahitian dance study and performance with the Lei Pasifika Company back in NYC.
Please feel welcome to reach out to Jia at jjung@civilbeat.org.
Civil Beat is a聽nonprofit, reader-supported newsroom聽based in Hawaii.
