Dolly Li

Biography

Dolly Li an award-winning independent video journalist, producer, and correspondent. She has played key roles in developing and launching several international digital publications, including Al Jazeera’s AJ+ English and AJ+ Español. In 2018, she co-founded the digital publication, Goldthread, and served as its content director, leading editorial, creative, and social media strategy. Dolly has experience reporting domestically throughout the U.S. and internationally from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. She navigates stories in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish.

Dolly began her career in media in 2014 at AJ+ as a creative producer. There, she sharpened her knives as a video journalist, on-camera host, and multimedia content creator. Her short documentaries about the Chinese-American communities of the U.S. have garnered over 10 million views online, received a regional Emmy in Northern California, an award in longform storytelling from the Society of Professional Journalists, and praise from Junot Diaz. Beyond immigrant communities, Dolly has reported on the U.S. prison system, the Ayotzinapa student massacre in Mexico, and the opioid epidemic in the Pacific Northwest.

As a visually-minded journalist, she pioneered a line of animated infographics, known as Infogifs, that recreated data visualizations for AJ+’s social media platforms. AJ+ became one of the first publishers to use GIPHY to disseminate news. Her illustration work has also appeared in the Washington Post and the Oxford American.

In 2018, Dolly moved from Oakland to Hong Kong to create Goldthread, a publication incubated by the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s 115-year-old English language newspaper of record. Goldthread covers culture in Greater China and beyond for English-speaking audiences in video, text, and experimental multimedia formats.

Previously, Dolly was a co-lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, advising second-year multimedia students through the completion of their Master’s thesis projects. She also served as Vice President of the AAJA San Francisco Chapter, providing professional development and mentoring to students and minority journalists. She is currently the co-director of AAJA’s Video Group.

Dolly studied visual arts and economics at Rice University. She’s currently based in her hometown of Brooklyn, NY.

Articles, Publications, and Appearances

Dolly Li is the co-founder of Goldthread, a visual publication that covers culture, identity and travel in Greater China.

Documentaries on Chinese Americans in the Mississippi Delta, San Gabriel Valley, and San Francisco

• The Untold Story of America’s Southern Chinese (AJ+)

• Chinatown’s Resistance (AJ+) – Winner of a regional Emmy

• LA’s New Chinese Food (AJ+)

Select Video Productions

• I’m A Chinese Cowboy With A Southern Accent (AJ+, March 6, 2020)

• For This Chinese Texan, Guns Are The American Dream (AJ+, February 28, 2020)

• Why Are So Many Korean Americans Adopted? (AJ+, September 17, 2019)

• Buying Food with Facial Recognition in China (Goldthread, January 2, 2019)