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Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Mitch Weiss will be teaching as an adjunct journalism instructor this fall at the University of South Carolina Upstate in the Fine Arts and Communications Studies Department. A veteran writer, editor and special projects reporter, Weiss, 49, will teach Media Management, a class about the business side of media operations. He will address issues specific to the changes and challenges the media business faces in the current economic climate, such as large-scale job cutbacks and media consolidations and reorganizations.
�The expertise that Mitch Weiss brings to USC Upstate journalism students is without parallel. His award-winning career in journalism, his novel, which was selected as one of the year�s best books by The Washington Post Book World, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette and the St. Louis Dispatch, and his position with the Associated Press brings the rich texture of a successful journalism career into the classroom,� says Jimm Cox, chairman of the Fine Arts and Communication Studies Department. A native of New York City, Weiss� career spans nearly 30 years. After earning his master�s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1982, he worked as an Associated Press reporter in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio for 12 years. In 1998 he became the state editor for The Blade of Toledo, Ohio and from 2003 to 2005 he worked as the paper�s projects reporter. Weiss moved to the Carolinas to take the job of deputy business editor of The Charlotte Observer in 2005, and most recently was named correspondent to the Associated Press� Charlotte Bureau in early 2008. �Journalism is a wonderful career,� Weiss says, adding that he enjoys teaching students about all aspects of journalism, and looks forward to mentoring them as they explore their career options. Investigative reporting, or �watch dog� journalism, is his passion, and in his case led to the Pulitzer Prize award for investigative reporting. While projects reporter for The Blade, he and fellow reporter Michael Sallah launched an investigation into Tiger Force, a 45-member paratrooper task force of the U.S. Army, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, and war crimes committed by the task force between May and November 1967 during the Song Ve Valley and Operation Wheeler campaigns in Vietnam. While the Army had launched its own investigation of the crimes, no one was ever prosecuted for the torture, maiming, rape, scalping and killing of unarmed Vietnamese villagers including men, women, children and the elderly. The reporters published their findings in a series of articles in The Toledo Blade in 2003, and were subsequently awarded the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal for medium newspapers, the Sigma Delta Chi award for investigative reporting for publications with a circulation of 100,000 or more, the Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers, and finally, in 2004, the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. In 2006, the two reporters published a book detailing their research and findings, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War. Wiess� latest project was a two-year investigation into the poultry processing industry for The Charlotte Observer which has resulted in congressional hearings this June into the industry which chronically under-reports the extent of workplace injuries inside its plants. In the report �Cruelest Cuts: The Human Cost of Bringing Poultry to Your Table� Weiss� team of reporters discovered that workers, increasingly Latino illegal immigrants, often suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive-motion hand-related injuries including cuts and finger amputations and are discouraged from reporting medical problems for fear of losing their jobs. �USC Upstate�s plan is to have Mitch Weiss offer a class in his area of specialty, investigative journalism, in the spring semester 2009,� says Cox. The class will cover Freedom of Information requests and a review of the information databases and other research tools useful to investigative journalists. �The Media Management class and the Investigative Reporting class are both important opportunities for USC Upstate communication majors to study with a recognized professional,� says Cox. For more information about the Journalism and Mass Communication program at USC Upstate, visit www.uscupstate.edu and search the A to Z index for Journalism. Mitch Weiss can be reached at [email protected] and Jim Coxx can be reached at [email protected]. (Image provided by USCU. )
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