Cutting-edge political Web site editor, CNBC business newsman to visit campus

Jim VandeHei, executive editor of the popular new Washington, D.C. Web site ThePolitico.com, and Charles Gasparino, on-air editor and business reporter for CNBC, will visit the UW–Madison campus in April as writers in residence.

VandeHei recently left the Washington Post, where he had been national political reporter, to help run the much-anticipated Internet venture in national political news, which debuted in late January.

His decision to leave the Post and help start the Web site, along with Post colleague James Harris, jolted mainstream Washington media.

The American Journalism Review called the loss of VandeHei and Harris to ThePolitico.com “a crushing loss” for the Washington Post and “a dramatic manifestation of the ongoing shift from old media to new.”

VandeHei, a graduate of UW-Oshkosh, will be the spring Public Affairs Writer in Residence and will meet with journalism, political science and public policy students and classes during the week of April 8.

Gasparino provides up-to-the-minute CNBC reports throughout the day as Wall Street trading unfolds. He often breaks news on major issues involving corporate America.

Before joining CNBC, Gasparino was a senior writer at Newsweek magazine and also covered business at The Wall Street Journal. There, he covered some of the biggest financial scandals of all time, including coverage of Wall Street research scandals.

He is the author of “Blood on the Street,” in which he details how Wall Street analysts duped a generation of investors. His latest book, “King of the Club,” is due out in August and focuses on former New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso.

He will be the Business Writer in Residence and will spend time speaking to journalism and business classes during the week of April 16.

The Writer in Residence Program is sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and University Communications, with support from the UW Foundation. The public affairs program is cosponsored by the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the business program is cosponsored by the School of Business.

For more information about the program, contact Dennis Chaptman at (608) 262-9406 or dchaptman@wisc.edu.