Leqi Zhong

Alumni

Leqi graduated from Guangdong University of Finance and Economics in 2020 with a B.A. in journalism (multimedia concentration). In 2019, as a new media intern at Fortune China, she wrote daily briefings and weekly newsletters and assisted editors in preparing Fortune’s rankings and events. The experience sparked her interest in business and technology reporting. Later, Leqi interned for nine months at Reuters’ Shanghai newsroom company news team, where she took part in both breaking news and investigative projects concerning listed companies, banking, environment, commodities, policies, Chinese auto industries, and COVID-19. Before joining Berkeley Journalism, Leqi wrote for Caixin.com and Caixin Weekly, exploring scientific discoveries, environmental pollution, and climate change. Meanwhile, her part-time job was supporting PRX’s The World Radio Program Chinese correspondents to cover topics about China’s policies, society, economy, and popular trends.

During her two years at Berkeley Journalism, Leqi was on the narrative writing track but also took multimedia classes and specialized in data analysis and visualization. She published on Berkeleyside about Berkeley Marina, wrote enterprise stories for Oakland North and Richmond Confidential about education, business, and the Chinatown community. Leqi was among the “Our Better Web” initiative and produced an audio piece explaining how Facebook pretends to support the reform of Section 230 to scare off its competitors.

Having a summer internship at NBC News’ Biztech Unit, Leqi reported on inflation, supply chain shortages, and monitored listed companies’ earnings calls. She then joined CNBC in the fall of 2022 as a tech news intern at the San Francisco bureau, participating in TV news production that broke some of the biggest news in 2022, such as the takeover of Twitter, the fall of FTX, and the layoffs of the tech industry.

Following her passion for tech reporting, Leqi’s thesis project examined the sudden popularity of and the public’s unrealistic expectations toward the decentralized social media Mastodon and how the influx of Twitter users destroyed one of the largest Mastodon instances’ minority communities, as well as posted threats to the volunteer moderation model.

In addition to Berkeley’s curriculum, Leqi participated in the Berkeley-Stanford exchange program. For the winter quarter of 2023, she took courses from Stanford’s history department, communication department, and Stanford Law School, aiming to deepen her skills in journalism programming and expand her knowledge in blockchain regulation and urban humanities. Studying in the psychology department in the spring quarter, she researched on AI’s curiosity and its difference in the learning environment compared to human beings. To advance her thesis, Leqi also dived into online politics and abuse mitigation through the instruction of the political science department and Stanford Internet Observatory.

 

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REPORTING INTERESTS

AI Compliance, Aging & Caregiving, Blockchain / Cryptocurrency, Business, Consumer & Investor, Content Moderation / Trust and Safety, Decentralization, Section 230, Social Media, Supply Chain, Technology, Web3