Jonathan Landreth is a freelance reporter, writer, editor, and media strategist. He served as ChinaFile Managing Editor from its launch in Spring 2013 until Spring 2018. He previously reported from Beijing from 2004 to 2012, with a focus on the media and entertainment industries and their effect on the world’s perception of China. He was the founding Asia Editor of The Hollywood Reporter, in Beijing in 2005, and his subsequent freelance work from China appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The China Economic Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Forbes, Wallpaper, Marie Claire, The Times of London, and Travel+Leisure. Since 2012, he has had a hand in organizing the annual Asia Society U.S.-China Film Summit in Los Angeles. In 2015, he launched China Film Insider, a website devoted to covering the growing ties between China and Hollywood. In 2018, he helped the San Francisco Green Film Festival select a series of documentaries about China’s environmental challenges.

From 2002 to 2004, Landreth was with Reuters in Singapore, where he covered the global oil trade. From 2000 to 2002, he reported for Reuters in New York, covering the health and energy industries, and the attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. Before Reuters, he was a Founding Editor at the New York- and Beijing-based website VirtualChina (1999-2000). Prior to his work as a reporter, Landreth edited non-fiction books at Henry Holt & Company in New York (1993-1998). He holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley (’92), and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (’99). He is the proud father of a daughter whose passport is impressively packed for a 14-year-old.

Last Updated: November 30, 2018

Media

12.04.12

“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” Hits the Road

Jonathan Landreth
Debut filmmaker Alison Klayman has been on a global tour with her documentary—Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry—a film about one of China’s most provocative artists and activists, which this week, was named one of fifteen films put on a short list to be...

Media

11.02.12

Chinese Movie Mogul Promises New Party Leaders Will Open Market to Hollywood

Jonathan Landreth
A wise old cartoon turtle in Kung Fu Panda advises Po, the portly black and white star of the 2004 DreamWorks Animation blockbuster film, not to fret about honing his fighting skills, but rather to focus on the moment and do his...

Viewpoint

10.29.12

Hollywood Film Summit Draws Chinese Movie Moguls

Jonathan Landreth
LOS ANGELES—Hollywood and Chinese movie makers and industry hangers-on will gather Tuesday at the third annual Asia Society U.S.-China Film Summit on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles.At a gala dinner Tuesday night, organizers...

Features

10.11.12

Will Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize Finally Mean Better Book Sales Abroad?

Jonathan Landreth
Literature in translation in the United States has wide but shallow roots, making English language stars out of the likes of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Haruki Murakami, but leaving most of China’s writers struggling to take hold. Now, veteran...

Sinica Podcast

09.14.12

Hollywood Comes to China

Jeremy Goldkorn, William Moss & more from Sinica Podcast
When Xi Jinping headed to the United States earlier this year in what everyone assumed was a pre-coronation victory lap, one of the more surprising outcomes of his visit ended up being a stopover in Los Angeles, where China agreed to increase the...