New York – Wonders of Financial Journalism

On Monday afternoon ‘City wolves’ hit the Wall Street and had a lecture with Robert Ivry, Bloomberg Investigative Reporter and Editor, who helped Bloomberg sue The Federal Reserve for details of the unprecedented bank bailout. His reporting has taken a deep look at the financial crisis, and he talked about who is winning the current regulatory battle and how decisions made in the US are having global impact.

Getting creative in New York City

In the afternoon, students got out of the train at the Times Square and entered the door of The New York Times. They had number of lectures by some of the best journalists such as Mike McIntire, investigative reporter at The New York Times; and Matt Purdy, head of the investigative team, who also headed coverage of the BBC phone hacking scandal. The afternoon was by a spectacular meeting with Mark Thompson, chief executive of The New York Times Company, for City journalists more known as a former BBC Director General. The day was concluded by visit of the NYT Hall of Pulitzers.

The Museum of American Finance

NY Fed gold vault

On Friday, students met with officials at The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who talked about the current economic outlook and took them to the NY Fed’s famous gold vault, the largest depository of gold in the world. The last day of New York financial adventures, students visited The Museum of American Finance, which is a new Wall Street institution, housed in a historic building, that focuses on the financial markets in detail.

The economist and historian Gregory Brennan, came to speak about the recession and its aftermath, followed by a tour around the museum, which has displays on the development of the US financial system starting in the revolutionary era. It currently has a special exhibit on the 100th anniversary of the Fed, and numerous other displays about financial markets, panics, economic expansion and boom and bust cycles.

Bloomberg HQ

City student Jack Aldane outside the Federal Reserve

Students in front of The New York Times

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.

 

China – Journalism in Action

BEIJING:

In the world of journalism, practice should never fall behind the theory. Despite a very enriching academic programme, students had a chance to get an insight of how the industry of the financial journalism works in reality. In the middle of the week in Beijing, students were invited by the British Council in China to the UK-China annual People to People Dialogue with Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and British ministers and officials. This was followed by the British Council networking event where students met with British and Chinese students studying British businesses in China in a friendly atmosphere at Hotel Éclat.

At the end of the week, students visited the offices of the British Council, Cultural and Educational arm of the British Embassy, where they were learned about living and working in China and heard from Guardian correspondent Tania Branigan, herself a City graduate. Lastly, students took a little break from journalism and went to explore the beauty of Chinese landmarks such as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall of China.

SHANGHAI:

Shanghai Media Group tour

Students visited the European Chamber of Commerce where they learnt about business in China, trade liberalization and recent developments such as the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. This was followed by a visit to Shanghai Media Group – a multimedia television and radio broadcasting, news and Internet company, as well as the second biggest media group in China. Thanks to Fudan’s media connections, students also saw the newsroom of Shanghai Daily, the largest English-language news portal in East China.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Schooling in China

BEIJING

Tsinghua University

In April, 15 City Financial Journalism students travelled to China, first to Beijing and then to Shanghai. For the first week, students were based at Tsinghua University’s Global Business Journalism department in Beijing. The week started with lectures on understanding media policy and development by Min Hang, Director of the Global Business Journalism Program. Students also participated in the panel discussion with Tsinghua journalism students on business news data mining and analysis led by Lee Miller, Editor-at-Large for Bloomberg News.

Zhenzhi  Guo, PhD, Professor of Broadcasting History sparked students’ interest with a fascinating discussion of the difficulties faced by broadcasters relating to censorship and political interference. Qingan Zhou, Director of International Communication Program and an anchor at CCTV, provided an international perspective on public diplomacy and relations in China. The very productive week was topped off by a lecture on multi-media and how it has changed journalism in the USA, China and around the world.

Students heard from Rick Dunham, a veteran political journalist and one of America’s foremost authorities on the use of social media for journalism. During the whole week students were accompanied and lectured by top academics and experts in the industry who introduced them to a very different reporting and editorial culture.

SHANGHAI

Fudan University

On Sunday April 27, students moved to another cradle of the financial world – Shanghai. They were warmly welcome by Fudan University, one of the oldest and most selective universities in China. The programme was very vivid and business-like and students had lots of opportunities to see how the financial industry works from inside. 

They started with a lecture on Applied Media Management by Dr David Maguire, a former journalist at Shanghai Daily and former editor of Sunday Morning Post in Hong Kong. Doug Young, Reuters Correspondent and author of “The Party Line: How the Media Dictates Public Opinion in Modern China”, took students through group exercises on how both Chinese and foreign media report financial news in China, and the challenges and restrictions of their reporting.

“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.”