What Students Have Said About MAFJ Summer School?

Rochelle Toplensky

MA Financial Journalism

“The trip to China was a great opportunity to visit a burgeoning superpower to better understand their economy, their media and the dramatic transformation taking place.”

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Nora Juswar

MA Financial Journalism

“The summer trip to China was an eye opening for me. Other than the controlled press freedom, China has a lot to offer in terms of culture and business. I personally liked our visit to the media agencies in China. Apart from getting the inside scoop on how the business works in the country, it was also an opportunity for us to get acquainted more on the job prospects in China should we intend to spread our wings in Asia in the near future.”

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Jack Aldane

MA Financial Journalism

“The skills I acquired as a journalist in Beijing now join a comprehensive knowledge of global economics and financial markets, as well as the skills needed to work in both TV and Radio.”

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Sarah Squires

MA Financial Journalism

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” sang Frank Sinatra in New York, New York. And after only a week in the Big Apple, many of us were definitely more than willing to try to make it there. The role models helped of course. The great and the good of the NY media establishment were out in force to make us welcome – and some were even British. Mark Thompson, once of the BBC and now heading up The New York Times as president and chief executive officer, spent an hour answering our questions on the challenges of running a print organisation in the 21st century. It increasingly seems that inside many a journalist is a book waiting to come out. In the case of Bethany McLean, that’s two books so far – both of which were essential reading on the MA. What we got from her can only be described as a master class in financial reporting.  No wonder that for many this was the highlight of the week.  Bankers, academics and researchers all lined up to teach us about the US economy first-hand. Incredibly useful – after all, when America sneezes, the rest of the world still catches a cold.  Just think about Lehmans – we certainly did as we sat in the room at the NY Fed where the key decisions were made in that fateful weekend in September 2008. All in all an amazing week. And with New York famed as the city that never sleeps, there was plenty of time for other stuff too. After all, we had just filed our final projects and New York has some of the best nightlife in the world…”

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Mikkel C. Stern-Peltz

MA Financial Journalism

“The summer school programme was great. The guest lecturers and industry visits were extremely interesting and very informative, as well as a great opportunity to make some connections. The trip gave a very nice impression of American media culture, which is markedly different to the UK, yet also one of the defining global media cultures. Generally, the summer school programme was very well put together, and also left ample time to explore one of the greatest cities on the planet.”

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Steve Solomon

Steve Solomon, NYU’s Marjorie Deane professor and the director of the Business and Economic Reporting programme, commenting on the experience of NYU students at City, said:

“Many thanks for all your meticulous planning and for your warm hospitality. It was indeed a great week of learning (and fun) for the students. I know from talking with them that the visit was very successful.”

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Faizah Malik

MA Financial Journalism

“It was a complete educational, cultural and social adventure. I am grateful that we got the opportunity this year to attend the summer school in two different places – it has been an invaluable learning experience because it was my first trip to these cities. China was a real eye opener because it had a strange hybrid of communism and capitalism co-existing side by side. After visiting Beijing and Shanghai and looking at some of the modern luxurious shopping outlets it is easier to understand the rise in Chinese consumerism. It will be interesting to see how this acquisition of goods and services changes and shapes the future of the global economic outlook. New York was like a massive movie set where anything could happen. The action hero could swing from the iconic Art Deco style Chrysler building anytime. Talking to renowned journalists at the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times was very interesting. Manhattan does feel like the global business and financial powerhouse that it is. NY had a lively buzz, there were so many things to see and do, with so little time. It was good to take part in the academic sessions with invited guests at the universities in China and NY. It was also interesting to visit media organisations, financial institutions and have a chance to talk directly with leading figures in the business and financial field.”

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Susan Vende

MA Financial Journalism Susan Vende took the initiative and set up a number of interviews with business people during her stay in Beijing and Shanghai to coincide with the China Summer School. She filmed a short movie and wrote several articles about business in China. Here are two pieces of work she did about fashion entrepreneurs in China:

Feature about Hans Galliker, eco fashion entrepreneur:

Here

Video about Dong Liang, the first multi-brand store to promote Chinese designers:

Here

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Schooling in New York

NYU

On June 16th, students woke up in the Big Apple and started a week’s study at New York University’s (NYU) journalism department. There they got a chance to meet Bethany McLean, the award winning financial journalist, famous for uncovering the Enron scandal. She talked about her reporting of current financial scandals, about the process of organizing complicated material and making financial material come alive, as well as her recent work for Vanity Fair covering the downfall of Steven A. Cohen and the SAC hedge fund.

On Tuesday, students met Larry Rubenstein, Capital Markets Managing Counsel for Wells Fargo. As an expert in securitized assets, Larry talked them through the growth of securitized assets in the US, the development of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and how that differs from the European model. He also talked about the housing boom and the current state of both the housing market and the securitized debt markets today in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal

On Wednesday, Kim Ruhl, economics professor at NYU’s Stern Business School provided students with a general view of the US economy, the recovery and budget/political issues with an emphasis on the differences in the political and economic situations in the UK, Europe and the US. In the afternoon, students had the chance to quiz Gerard Baker, editor in chief at The Wall Street Journal, the largest newspaper in the United States which has a circulation of about 2.4 million copies.

The following day, Sean Capperis, a Data Manager and Research Analyst at the Furman Center, lectured them on income inequality in the region. A week of interesting lectures was rounded off by Leslie Wayne, former New York Times business reporter and NYU adjunct, who talked about corporate corruption and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, its global reach and how businessmen, kleptocrats and government officials are increasingly being caught by it.

 

“A complete educational, cultural and social adventure”

Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Summer School (MAFJ) was launched in 2014 and is an exciting educational initiative aimed at aspiring financial journalists, helping them to enhance their knowledge and open up new career horizons. Students on City University’s MA in Financial Journalism (MAFJ) were offered the opportunity to travel to New York and China to study business and economic coverage in a global context. This followed the setting up of partnerships with several leading universities – New York University (NYU) in the United States along with Fudan and Tsinghua Universities, in Shanghai and Beijing. Students agreed it was an “educational, cultural and social adventure.”

The MAFJ programme is led by Professor Steve Schifferes, who is the Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism at City University London. The summer school director is Linda Lewis, who was acting Programme Director, MA Broadcast and Television Journalism. She designed the summer school curriculum and together they accompanied 15 MAFJ students to China in April 2014 and hosted students from NYU on their visit to London in May, with a further 11 students travelling to New York in June.

Professor Schifferes says:

‘This new programme demonstrates the attractiveness of City’s financial journalism programme to leading journalism departments around the world. It is a vital component in our educational approach which stresses the global nature of business and economic coverage, and provides valuable insights into the two key financial world to supplement our own close ties with London as a leading financial and media centre.”

In May, City University’s Journalism Department hosted NYU business journalism students in London, who also attended classes at City’s journalism department as part of a mutual exchange. Accompanied by the City students, they had various lectures on the euro-crisis, the austerity plan in the UK, and visited the Bank of England, the Economist, Thomson Reuters and the BBC.

Linda Lewis said:

“This has been an exciting opportunity to expose students to other cultures, with different approaches to the media. The fantastic collaboration we have established with leading journalism schools in China and New York has enabled students to combine the best of academic teaching with practical experience in both these centres.”