Duanli Zhu

Duanli Zhu is a bilingual multimedia journalist based in Los Angeles, California. One could best describe her as a professional with good communication skills, strong executive power and aspiration to knowledge. She plans on using her skill, passion, and creativity to provide people with the information they should know about this changing world, and also to create a platform as a speaker for people who need to be heard.

Currently, she is a junior at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California, where she is majoring Broadcast and Digital Journalism, with minoring in Marketing.

Though Duanli was born and raised in China, to study overseas had long been her biggest dream. Her career goal of becoming a journalist dates back to her high school, where she was the editor-in-chief of a school magazine. She spent months collecting numbers of excellent essays among the students, in which they conveyed real feelings and emotions about the school life. However, none of these works got published, because the directing teacher said they were too non-traditional and "reactionary". This was the first time that she virtually experienced media censorship in China. After then, she started to be desperate for freedom of speech, and truth.

After coming to USC, she values her education greatly. She enjoys doing the homework assigned in journalism class, challenging but fulfilling. From reporting, writing, editing to producing, she is making her best efforts in participating in every aspect of good story telling. She has covered stories on a range of topics, such as politics, election, court, business, health and entertainment.

She has been heavily involved in various groups that relates to her area of expertise. During her sophomore year at USC, she has been working as a multimedia journalist of Annenberg TV News , USC's student-run daily live newscast. She conducts and shoots interviews or b-rolls for local news and day-of-air stories in the field, and writes copy stories and anchor packages for the newscast. She also worked for Neon Tommy, USC Annenberg's award winning news publication, as a social media journalist, where she promotes stories across social media properties including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr to increase readership up by 10%.

Besides, Duanli is the Publicity Executive of USC Chinese Student &Scholars Association (CSSA) , one of the most influential societies of overseas Chinese on the west coast. She directs the association’s overall communication strategy, including creating publicity campaigns for events and marketing the association's image to Chinese student communities in Los Angeles. She was at first an editor and social media specialist, in charge of producing contents for events such as Spring Festival Gala, The Voice of USC, and SoCal Forum, and then promoting on Wechat and Weibo. She is enthusiastic and excited to apply her professional skills to serve a Chinese student community in U.S., which makes her feel very proud.

She also gained off Public Relations experience through her internship at Golin in Shanghai, where she worked as a media connector. She moderates communications between the organization and various media outlets such as local and national magazines and newspapers, also she creates content for press releases and keynote presentations.

In the leisure time, she likes playing the flute and reading movie reviews.

If you would like to contact Duanli directly, her contact information is as follows:

Email: zhuduanli@gmail.com