Philip Merrill College of Journalism | University of Maryland

China Journalists In Residence Program
The US-China Education Trust and the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism have partnered to send prominent American journalists to China each year. The program, which started in 2004, partners with Chinese journalism schools and allows the journalist to give lectures across the country. The Journalists in Residence have included Merrill College professors David Broder and Haynes Johnson, and Board of Visitors member and Washington Post columnist William Raspberry.

2004 Program: David Broder
The inaugural Journalist-in-Residence session took place in May/June 2004, when Pulitzer Prize-winning political journalist David S. Broder traveled to China to speak at Fudan University and Wuhan University. He lectured about the general practice of journalism in the United States, as well as his 50-year experience as a political reporter.

Having covered every national campaign and convention since 1960, Broder provided special insights regarding the 2004 US presidential elections, a topic of great interest to the Chinese audience. In addition to his university lectures, Broder was interviewed by Shanghai media representatives and appeared on a local radio talk show, as well as conducting a live web chat. Translations of some of the articles and the online chat are available here.

Broder noted that the experience was one of the most rewarding events of his long career. The students to whom he spoke were equally enthusiastic.

2005 Program: Haynes Johnson
Pulitzer Prize winner Haynes Johnson was the 2005 Journalist in Residence. He is a best-selling author and TV commentator, and spent much of his journalistic career working at The Washington Post. He has published 14 books, with his most recent, "The Age of Anxiety: From McCarthyism to Terrorism," due to be released in fall 2005.

In partnership with USCET, the program's primary co-sponsors are the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism and Fudan University's School of Journalism. It took place from May 23 to June 3, and included travel to Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming.

In Beijing, Johnson held seminars at Beijing Foreign Studies University and People's University; in Shanghai, he spoke to students at Fudan's School of Journalism. In addition, he met with practicing journalists in both cities, participated in a web chat, and was interviewed about his experiences. Johnson's trip ended at Yunnan University, where he lectured at an international conference addressing the topic "The US in Times of War and Peace".

In September 2005, Johnson made one final appearance as USCET's Journalist in Residence. As a lecturer at The Johns Hopkins University's SAIS China Forum, he spoke about his experiences and offered his perceptions of Chinese university students. He concluded by noting that person to person exchanges offer an important opportunity to increase understanding between the US and China

2006 Program: Bill Raspberry
In 2006, USCET was pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winner Bill Raspberry to its roster of Journalists in Residence. Formerly a Washington Post columnist, Mr. Raspberry’s incisive and provocative opinion pieces were also syndicated in newspapers across the country.

A popular professor at Duke University, Raspberry enjoyed the opportunity to take his teaching across the Pacific and lecture at Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Foreign Studies University and Fudan University. In addition to offering insights about his own personal experience as a journalist, he covered a wide array of topics, including the US civil rights movement and how journalists can affect their readers and the world in which they live.