Journalism professor to teach a semester in China

Joseph Weber, an associate professor of journalism, will teach in Beijing, China, for four months beginning Sept. 8.

Weber will teach graduate students in the Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication.

The GBJ program, organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in Washington, D.C., has provided education in Western-style business and economic reporting at Tsinghua since 2007. Tsinghua, a century-old university known as the MIT of China, opened its journalism school in 2002.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Journalism and Mass Communications is building ties with Chinese universities, under the guidance of Dean Gary Kebbel. In addition to his work at Tsinghua, Weber will lecture at Southwest University of Political Science and Law in the central Chinese city of Chongqing, as well as at two other universities in Beijing.

"The Chinese are keen to learn about business and economic coverage and about multi-media journalism," Weber said. "And I get to learn first-hand about the world's second-largest economy as it pushes even further into the global limelight."

Gary Kebbel, dean of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, said "Weber will educate some of the best and brightest Chinese students, the future leaders in their organizations, in the principles of journalism and media."

Weber, who joined UNL's College of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2009, worked 35 years in magazines and newspapers with most of his time, 22 years, spent at Bloomberg Businessweek. The ICFJ is led by Joyce Barnathan, a former top editor at the magazine who served for seven years as its Asia regional editor and Hong Kong bureau manager.

Weber brings some international experience to his post. He covered Canada for Bloomberg Businessweek as Toronto bureau chief from 1997-99. In May 2010, he and UNL associate professor Bruce Thorson took eight photojournalism students to Kazakhstan on a three-week reporting trip.

Recently, in January 2011, Weber was a fellow at the Reynolds Foundation Seminar for Business Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. The fellows included academics from Beijing who invited him to lecture at their schools, the University of International Business and Economics and the Central University of Finance and Economics.