Cheng Lei signs with Sky News Australia as a presenter and columnist
Journalist Cheng Lei is returning to her role as a news presenter, joining Sky News Australia just two months after her release from a Chinese prison. | LISTEN TO CHENG LEI
Journalist Cheng Lei is returning to her role as a news presenter just two months after her release from a Chinese prison.
Chinese-born Cheng, 48, was released from detention in Beijing on October 11 after more than three years behind bars. This week she will begin work at Sky News Australia, as a TV presenter and columnist for the media outlet’s website.
“If you asked me two months ago (whether) I’d be making a redebut and getting back behind the desk in the studio and doing my old job again, I would have said you were crazy,” she told The Australian ahead of starting her new role.
“I thought I would be back to being a soccer mum and, at best, get a few translation or interpreting gigs if I was lucky.”
During the interview, Cheng laughed, cried and shared her sheer delight at being back in Melbourne and reunited with her two children, aged 12 and 14.
Born in China, Cheng migrated to Australia aged 10, and while she is relishing the freedom of being back home, she revealed the horror of being confined to a tiny Beijing cell with little access to the outside world.
During her imprisonment her hunger for news and information never subsided, but she was forced to watch the Chinese state news each day, which gave her little insight into what was happening in the world.
“You wouldn’t call that news, it’s just political propaganda and very, very skewed,” Cheng said.
“As a foreign citizen I got the monthly consular visits which I would always hang out for and even though 30 minutes was so precious to get news about my family, when I couldn’t write directly to Nick (her partner), I would always save time to say, ‘what’s happening in the world?’
“I would ask the embassy officials what really happened, what’s really going on between Ukraine and Russia and most of the time it would be the opposite (of what was on state news).”
Cheng was banned from reading newspapers and magazines and allowed only bookswhile in prison.
She will make her TV debut at Sky in the early hours of Wednesday – starting at midnight – hosting the channel’s News Night program before taking a break over Christmas and returning on a casual basis in January to present across the schedule as she eases back into journalism.
She said returning to news presenting would allow her to “rediscover” her voice and thanked News Corp – which owns Sky News and is the publisher of The Australian – for helping her regain the confidence to return to work.
“I think of all people to be shut up and locked up, journos probably suffer the most intense itch when it comes to communication and expression,” Cheng said.
“I have so missed that, it’s a huge hole in me.
“It’s already a big step, getting comfortable with the studio environment and reaquainted with news, having missed out on so much for the past three years.
“It’s a new sphere for me – I was predominantly business and mostly China.”
Sky News’s head of news, Elise Holman, described Cheng as an “outstanding journalist”.
“We are exceptionally pleased that we are able to help her reclaim the professional identity that was taken from her for three years and put her back where she belongs, at the front of live TV news,” Holman said.
Before Cheng was detained in August 2020 she was an anchor for the Chinese government’s English TV channel, CGTN.
She was detained by the Chinese Ministry of State Security in August 2020 after being charged with providing state secrets to foreign organisations and details around her arrest remain scant.
After her release, she revealed that she was imprisoned because she broke an embargo relating to a Chinese government meeting within minutes of it being made public. It was also repeatedly drilled into her how “shameful and sinful” journalism was while she was imprisoned.
“In China, I think everyone who works with information is at a certain amount of risk these days,” she said.
“Not only was I physically deprived, but I was treated with cold handcuffs, harsh questioning and distrust and disdain.
“Now I’m given a platform, I have a voice again and I can meet new people.
“I had hardwired myself to think of journalism with negative feelings because that’s what repression and suppression does to you.”
As to whether she will visit China again she said: “Never say never.”
“I would have to feel first of all safe and I would have to feel welcome. There’s a lot of sneering pieces about me in the Chinese internet sphere – that’s not nice reading,” Cheng said.
More Coverage
