China Reporter for The New York Times
Muyi Xiao is a China reporter on the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. The team combines traditional reporting with advanced digital forensics. Previously, she worked for ChinaFile, Tencent and Reuters. She has been covering China from both inside and outside its borders for more than a decade.
At The Times, she has led investigative reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China’s propaganda and surveillance systems and tracking networks behind secret oil deliveries to North Korea. She has also investigated police brutality in the United States and covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was part of a team that was named a 2020 Pulitzer finalist in international reporting. She has also won a Gerald Loeb award in International category and three Society of Publishers in Asia Awards.
Before joining The Times, she was the Visuals Editor at ChinaFile, an online magazine focused on China published by the Asia Society. She commissioned, edited and produced visual stories for the site for 3 years. She was the executive producer for the short film “Down from the Mountains” which won first place in the Long Form Video category of 2018 World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Contest. She worked as a reporter in China for the first half of her career. She gained rare access and broke stories about child marriage and fake girlfriend renting. She has also done enterprise coverage on China’s railway project in Tanzania and Zambia, the disappearance of flight MH370 and much more.
Muyi’s entry point to journalism is photojournalism. In 2017, she was selected by Time as “Nine Chinese Photographers You Need to Follow.” In 2021, she was named jury chair for the World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Contest.