In quitting, Google misses its chance

If you want to help change China for the better, you should involve China and be there. Otherwise you won't have an impact on the country simply by claiming a high moral ground and distancing yourself from the place.

That's what I told Nieman curator Bob Giles several years ago when the prestigious journalism foundation decided to withdraw from a program to train Chinese government officials in handling the international media coming to cover the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That decision had left the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University alone for the weeklong sessions.

Giles, in his reply, said he did see the value in these types of training sessions. However the overwhelming protests from Nieman alumni gave him little choice.