Journalist in Residence 2012

USCET’s ninth Journalist in Residence was Pulitzer Prize winning ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger, who traveled to China in May 2012 to lead workshops and lectures throughout Beijing and Shanghai.

Jesse began his speaking series at the Communications University of China (CUC) in Beijing on May 24. He led a journalism workshop with CUC graduate students on “Tips for Effective Reporting” and then gave a riveting lecture on the US financial crisis entitled, The Magnetar Story: Journalism and the Financial Crisis. He participated at a roundtable discussion with top Beijing reporters at China Daily before leading another journalism workshop, this time at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). BFSU’s students, including those majoring in English News Reporting, packed the room for Jesse’s journalism workshop and afternoon lecture.

Jesse also spent time speaking with and giving lectures to audiences in Shanghai. He visited the Financial Media Institute at Fudan University to give two speeches: one on “The Basics of Economic Reporting” and another on “Reporting During the Financial Crisis.” As in Beijing, Jesse captivated his audiences with his depth of reporting experience and “eye of the storm” perspective of the financial crisis. He participated in his second roundtable with leading Shanghai media outlets before concluding his tour as USCET’s Journalist in Residence. USCET was delighted that Jesse could participate in our programs as the ninth JIR.

Biography

Jesse Eisinger
Jesse Eisinger is a senior reporter at ProPublica, covering Wall Street and finance. He writes a regular column for The New York Times’s Dealbook section. In April 2011, he and Jake Bernstein were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories on questionable Wall Street practices that helped make the financial crisis the worst since the Great Depression. He and Bernstein were also finalists for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for the series. Prior to joining ProPublica, Eisinger was the Wall Street editor of Conde Nast Portfolio, where he wrote a November 2007 cover story titled “Wall Street Requiem,” in which he predicted the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Before joining Portfolio, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the founding writer of two market commentary columns, and he played a leading role in exposing accounting fraud at Belgium-based Lernout & Hauspie. During his tenure at The Wall Street Journal’s European edition in London, Eisinger won a “Best in Business” award from the UK-based World Leadership Forum for his coverage of accounting irregularities at the Irish drug maker Elan Corp. Earlier in his career, he covered biotechnology and pharmaceuticals for TheStreet.com and Dow Jones Newswires. Prior to that, he lived and worked as a journalist in Chile.