Shanghai-based Fudan University has joined hands with the US's Columbia University to train financial and business writers for the Chinese media.

The training program for media and finance professionals, which targets Chinese journalists' skills in covering international business and financial events, opened on Thursday and will end on Aug. 9, according to Prof. Zhao Kai, president of Fudan University's School of Journalism.

The school has co-sponsored the program with Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Both universities are well-known for their excellent journalism programs. The newly launched courses are part of Columbia's efforts to teach developing nations how to report financial and business news.

The courses will touch upon topics such as privatization, trade agreements, financial crisis, labor migration, economic globalization and functions of international financial institutions, says Prof. Zhao.

Lecturers include Jonathan Kaufman, a Pulitzer Award winner and front-page editor of Wall Street Journal, Columbia journalism professor Anya Schiffrin, and top writers and executives from Dow Jones, Forbes, Financial Times, Reuters, South China Morning Post and other global media giants.

Thursday afternoon's opening lecture was given by 2002 Nobel Prize for economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz on journalistic globalization and its impact on the Chinese media.