Newsman receives visiting professorship

A journalist who’s been at the forefront of broadcasting about the global financial crisis is being made a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Wolverhampton.

The accolade was presented to Paul Mason by the at a graduation ceremony at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on Wednesday, 4 April, 2012.

Paul is the economics editor of BBC Newsnight and covered the corporate scandals of Enron and Worldcom.

Born in Leigh, Lancashire in 1960, he graduated from the University of Sheffield in 1981 with a joint degree in Music and Politics. Following postgraduate research at Sheffield and teacher training in London, he taught at Loughborough University.

At the age of 30 he switched careers to become a journalist, working in specialist business magazines for Reed Elsevier. He joined Newsnight in 2011 and has led the programme's coverage of business, technology and economics ever since.

His groundbreaking reports on the rise of China as an economic power won him the Wincott Award in 2003. Paul was one of the BBC's first bloggers and has twice been nominated for the Orwell Prize.

He covered the collapse of Lehman Brothers live from outside its New York HQ and since then reported on the social and economic impact of the global meltdown across the world.

He is the author of two books: Live Working or Die Fighting, How the working class went global; and Meltdown: The end of the age of greed.

The University’s graduation ceremonies are being held at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from on April 4 and 5, 2012.

ENDS

Picture: University Governor Professor Martin Chambers, Paul Mason and Vice-Chancellor Professor Geoff Layer

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