Kristie Lu Stout to Moderate WMN Panel

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout will moderate a panel next month at the CASBAA Convention 200- in Hong Kong.

Women Media Networks (WMN) is a new not-for-profit media organization that is creating a regional network to empower women and help them realize their full potential. WMN will launch in the Asia-Pacific region with a breakfast event on Tuesday 3rd November at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Hong Kong. The event, held in conjunction with CASBAA Convention 2009, features a line-up of Asia’s most prominent media business leaders.

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The opening event panel, moderated by CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout, includes:

• Christine Fellowes, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Comcast International Media Group (CIMG),
• Michelle Guthrie, Senior Advisor, Providence Equity Asia Limited
• Aliza Knox, Head of Online Sales and Operations, Google Asia Pacific
• May Lee, Lotus Media House, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Rohana Rohzan, Chief Executive Officer, Astro
• Laura Wendt, Vice President and Managing Director of Walt Disney Television International (Southeast Asia).

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For more information about joining WMN and attending the WMN Breakfast visit the website at www.womenmedianetworks.com.

Source: Asia Media Journal and via twitter/klustout

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

Odds & Ends Monday

Photo Credit: David Joles, Star Tribune

Cyn has the night off, so I'm afraid that you're stuck with an odds and ends post from me. There always seem to be things that I come across that just don't make it into my latest post and eventually the opportunity arises to put together a mixed bag post of articles and videos.

First, is an article from the Star Tribune that mentions Minnesota native, Poppy Harlow.

The TV reporters covering Wall Street's meltdown are generating their own heat.

Three years ago, Rebecca Jarvis was best known as a finalist on "The Apprentice." Poppy Harlow could be found interviewing celebrities at movie premieres. Today, the two Minnesotans operate from the front lines of the biggest story in the world. They're financial reporters caught up in one of TV's most compelling dramas, with ratings climbing at double-digit rates, and young, relatively green journalists becoming the equivalent of the Gulf War's "scud studs."

"It's the biggest story of my life," said CNN's Harlow. "I'm aware of it every day and every night."

Check out the Star Tribune for the full article: The TV reporters covering Wall Street's meltdown are generating their own heat.

Harlow recently spoke with BeetTV about online reporting: Online Video Gives News Reporters More Flexiblity and Time

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CNN International's Kristie Lu Stout did a story about Shark Soup as part of the Going Green series.

First off, yes -- I've eaten the fin. Being half-Chinese, I grew up eating shark fin soup at special family functions. At the time, I didn't know about the brutal practice of "shark finning" or the impact it had on the environment.

Today, I stay away from the dish. But I'm also aware of the cultural stigma of saying "no" when it's served at a Chinese wedding. Thankfully, there's a compromise out there -- imitation shark fin soup. I go to Hong Kong's Kin's Kitchen to try it out.

The rest of the article is available on CNN.com.

The first video clip is a report on the issues surrounding the soup.

The second video clip is her Reporter's Notebook on the shark fin free version of the soup.

Here are the latest columns written by Tom Foreman that have appeared in the Philadelphia Metro:

The president is expecting

The first time I ever went out on a real date it was marvelous. She was lovely and nice, with long brown hair, and a beautiful smile. We held hands and laughed, and briefly made out in her driveway until I inadvertently let the clutch go and the Biscayne lurched backward into the street scaring the life out of both of us.

Like I said, it was a great experience. And it was also a huge mistake. Because Jera (that was her name ... no kidding) had wanted to go out with me for weeks, an anomaly of dating that I’d never experienced before and that I would meet precious few times in the future. She thought I was the nazz. The bee’s knees. Cool with a capital Q. When in truth, I was a skinny guy with glasses, an acne-constellation of Orion across my face, a forehead that excreted oil like a canola processing plant, and the fashion sense of a color-blind octogenarian.

In short, her expectations were far too high.

... for the rest of the article: The president is expecting

Fundamentally not fun in office

Less than a year ago, John McCain uttered seven words that proved disastrous to his presidential dreams: “The fundamentals of our economy are sound.” September 2008. Wall Street was in freefall. The housing market was reeling. Massive companies were trembling card houses in the teeth of a gale. Unemployment was climbing like a cat on the curtains. McCain looked out of touch and Barack Obama pounced.

For too many voters, McCain’s gaffe was a political infield fly. “We can see that things are collapsing. Don’t try to tell us they are not.” The first George Bush lost to Bill Clinton the same way: trying to tell voters that the economy was fine when they knew otherwise.

... for the rest of the article: Fundamentally not fun in office

Message in a bottle

Listen to one of the most impassioned speeches for health care reform: “We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospital can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family’s health shall never depend on the size of a family’s wealth.”

The speaker goes on to say, as we’ve all heard by now, that the president, vice president and members of Congress already have a generous public health care plan, and regular Americans deserve the same. It was a great speech for President Obama. Only he did not deliver it. It wasn’t even made this year. Those words were part of Ted Kennedy’s address to the Democratic Convention, in his failed presidential bid, almost 30 years ago.

... for the rest of the article: Message in a bottle

And finally, Jeanne Moos recently reported on TVNewsCloset.com, a site that allows TV News Anchors and journalists to sell clothes that they no longer want, need, or have been told not to wear again. She visited Kiran Chetry's closet for examples of items that could end up at a site like this.

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

Eco Solutions

Are you familiar with the program Eco Solutions? I happened to have caught the latest episode on CNN.com Live this weekend. What is it? It was a half hour program that focused on green solutions that are being used through out the world.

The Eco Solutions website describes the program as:
How do we sustain economic growth while preserving the planet? Every week, Eco Solutions takes viewers around the world to meet people who have thought of a solution and are putting it into practice.

If you haven't seen it before, you might be surprised at the variety of ways that power can be generated without the use oil, coal, etc. Kristie Lu Stout anchored the program. All of the stories featured on this past week's program can be found on CNN.com. Below are the links to the videos:

Spain's new solar power tower (Al Goodman reports)


Geothermal's green credentials (Hugh Riminton reports)


Winged boats sail green (Hugh Riminton reports)


Farmers turn waste to watts (Andrew Stevens reports)


China's 'Sunshine City' (Eunice Yoon reports)


Villagers learn to create light (Arwa Damon reports)

If you have CNN International, you can view Eco Solutions at 2300 GMT Mondays or 0400 GMT Tuesdays.

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

Where In The World Is CNN Going Now?

Next week is going to bring many changes to CNN. Did you know that they were opening a new news bureau? Where is the world does CNN not have a news presence?

Media Week had an article this week that talked about CNN's newest outpost. Below are a few excerpts:

In the week of Nov. 5, the news giant is set to open a news- gathering outpost in Second Life. And unlike news service Reuters, which embedded a real reporter in the online virtual world last year, CNN will rely on Second Life "residents" to do all the legwork.

In the space, the network will create a variation of its i-Reports, the real-world vehicle through which average citizens contribute eyewitness reports. CNN will equip Second Life denizens with kits enabling them to transmit copy and photos. Visitors to Second Life will be able to get the latest news via kiosks scattered throughout the virtual community.

And the network will act as a sort of journalism school, offering guidance to avatar citizen journalists via weekly "news meetings" directed by CNN.com staffers. And top CNN personalities including Larry King will conduct virtual training sessions for budding cyber journalists.

Given that Second Life users tend to be highly passionate about the virtual space, CNN execs believe the community will embrace user-generated journalism—more than they would embrace simply repurposed content.

"We looked at what are people doing [in Second Life] that is meaningful to what we do," said Susan Grant, executive vp of CNN News Services. "I love that we don't have to take things from the real world and force them in."

Not familiar with Second Life? CNN's Kristie Lu Stout reported on the virtual world earlier this year. Below is clip from that report:

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Today, MyUrbanReport posted a recent interview that he did with CNN's Krya Phillips. She talks about her recent documentary work as well as her very first interview.

Click To Play

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Mystery Journalist

Can you name this CNN journalist?

Let us know who you think it is and we'll reveal this journalist's identity in Sunday's post.

CNN International's Kristie Lu Stout

I recently came across this article about a CNN anchor that many of our US readers may have never seen before. Kristie Lu Stout is an anchor and correspondent on CNN International. Below is an article from the Stanford Alumni Association Magazine.

SPOTLIGHT: Kristie Lu Stout, '96, MA '97:
The Frequent Flyers' Friend

by THERESA JOHNSTON, '83

She's a familiar morning face in more than 200 million hotel rooms and households across 200 countries. Recently she was named "best news presenter" at the Asian Television Awards. But when Kristie Lu Stout leaves her CNN Today anchor desk in Hong Kong for trips back to the United States, few of her fellow Americans—other than frequent business travelers—ever recognize her. "I'm sort of in this weird alternative dimension," Stout says with a laugh. "CNN International is not shown widely in the United States. There are a few million U.S. households that have it, but [our core market] really is a vast audience of global nomads."

Stout also serves as a CNN International technology correspondent, and on a recent trip to Stanford she was taping a panel discussion with five tech entrepreneurs about the future of online gaming and other virtual worlds. "What does your avatar look like?" she asked the first panelist, referring to his online gaming persona. "Why would real-world social norms apply to a virtual space?"

Stout, a yoga enthusiast and a former model, says she wasn't particularly interested in technology when she was growing up in Saratoga, Calif. That changed when she became a Stanford freshman. "When you have people living next to you in the same dorm who are electrical engineering majors or playing online games like The Sims or Doom or Warcraft, you just become technology-curious." Stout earned her bachelor's in social psychology and a master's in media studies, and then interned at Wired magazine. She moved to Beijing, where she helped launch the China-based search engine Sohu.com and wrote a technology column for the South China Morning Post—all while taking advanced courses in Mandarin, her mother's native tongue.

CNN International first noticed Stout in 1999, while she was being interviewed at the network's Asian regional headquarters in Hong Kong for a segment about the Internet in China. Producers asked if she would be interested in developing a new English-language technology program called Spark.

Now she hosts CNN Today each weekday morning, with co-anchor Hugh Riminton, plus Global Office, a half-hour monthly show that covers innovations in business and technology. "She's a pretty valuable asset, that's for sure," says Global Office producer Tom Hayes. "Probably the best-prepared presenter I've worked with."

Stout's daily schedule is demanding, even by Hong Kong standards. Waking at 4, she parts with her husband, attorney Seung Chong, and catches a 10-minute cab ride to the CNN studios. From 5 to 7 a.m. she prepares for interviews and works with producers on a rundown of the morning's biggest stories. CNN Today runs live from 7 to 10:30 a.m. Then she's off to editorial meetings, tapings and teleconferences that may last into the early evening.

Yet despite the long hours and frequent jet lag, Stout insists there's no place she'd rather be. "Outside of a war zone, the biggest stories in the world for journalists, in my opinion, are on the rise of China and the rise of India," she notes. "Being based in Hong Kong, I can cover those stories. And that is a tremendous opportunity for me."

CNN.com recently posted an interview Stout did with a witness to the protests in Yangon.

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Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Canadian readers!

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Happy Columbus Day to our US readers!

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Mystery Journalist

This week's Mystery Journalist was Alina Cho.