ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan and Vice President of Development Vjollca Shtylla traveled to China to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism. ICFJ's Global Business Journalism program is in its fifth year there.

BEIJING -- The Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University is helping to generate top-quality coverage of business and finance in the world’s fastest growing economy, said Lisa Xue, chief administrative officer, China, for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Xue was speaking at a May 13 luncheon hosted by the bank as part of the 10th anniversary of the university's School of Journalism and Communication.

"We’re happy to see GBJ graduates are hired by China’s top media," said Xue.

Whitney Foard Small, Regional Director of Communications for Asia Pacific and Africa of Ford Motor Co., and Tatt Chen, Senior Vice President of Penn Schoen Berland, Asia, were special guest speakers in Professor Lee Miller's Data Mining class on April 9.

Small and Chen, whose firm does consulting work for Ford, talked about how they measure the impact of public relations campaigns and the attitudes of key groups of potential customers.

"Measuring PR can be done," Small said.

Zhang Hong, deputy editor-in-chief of the Economic Observer, told students in Advanced Business Writing how the weekly newspaper uses social media in news gathering and distribution. He visited Professor James Breiner's class on March 29.

The newspaper, with print distribution of about 100,000, gets about 10-15 percent of its web traffic from Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Zhang said.

Lars Willnat, professor of journalism at Indiana University, brought 17 students to visit the campus and Professor Lee Miller's data mining class on March 12.

Miller started the session started with a presentation on some of the top restaurant chains operating in China. Students then did a a data-mining exercise in the form of speed dating, in which they each interviewed 10 of their peers from the other country about their food preferences and eating habits.

After two minutes, they moved to interview the next person.

Knight Foundation support helps increase student body, deepen curriculum

WASHINGTON – The International Center for Journalists is expanding its pioneering Global Business Journalism Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

A $125,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the nation’s leading journalism funder, will help the center expand the program’s student body, deepen its curriculum and create new partnerships.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Luisa Handem Piette, working with UNESCO, her partner in Liberia, held a workshop to help media managers turn their news organizations into thriving, sustainable businesses.