Dunham hired to run Chinese biz journalism program

Rick Dunham, who has been working for the Houston Chronicle’s Washington bureau for the past six years, has been hired to run the graduate business journalism program in Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In a Facebook post, Dunham wrote, “The Global Business Journalism program will reunite me with my friends and former Business Week colleagues Joyce Barnathan and Jane Sasseen — Joyce as president of International Center for Journalists and Jane as a guest scholar at Tsinghua. I will be in China from Labor Day week through next July, with a visit home in the second half of January.”

The program is a joint project of the International Center for Journalists, which trains journalists in dozens of countries worldwide, and Tsinghua University in Beijing, considered one of China’s best. Dunham replaces Jim Breiner, former publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal.

Dunham had previously been with BusinessWeek for the past 15 years, covering the intersection of politics and policy in Washington. He joined BusinessWeek in 1992 after seven years as a national political reporter for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history, Dunham has been active in Washington journalism circles, having served as president of the National Press Club and chairman of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.