Dorinda Elliott is an adjunct professor of news literacy at Stony Brook University and contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler. She was Asia editor and a correspondent at Newsweek from 1985 to 2000, serving as bureau chief in Beijing, Moscow, and Hong Kong. She was editor-in-chief of Asiaweek from 2000 to 2001, and an editor-at-large and assistant managing editor at TIME from 2003 to 2006. She was the recipient of an Overseas Press Club award in 1996 and 1997 for her reporting on China. On Twitter: @dindaelliott.

Writing in the Cairo Review