China's economic rise is one of the most dramatic and complex stories of our time. Reporting on the rapid and sweeping changes underway in there and what those changes mean for the Chinese and everybody else is a great challenge. One reporter who does this consistently well is Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz. He’s helped us understand a wide range of stories from currency debates and stimulus spending to inflation worries and how families seek to prepare their children to compete in the global economy. In March he generated a lot of discussion by reporting that a widely heard and discussed report about conditions at FoxConn factories turning out Apple and other products had been fabricated. His report led to an unprecedented retraction of Mike Daisey’s story by This American Life.
Schmitz joined Marketplace in 2010. Prior to that, he was the Los Angeles bureau chief for KQED’s The California Report. He’s also reported for KPCC (89.3), and as a reporter for Minnespota Public Radio. Prior to his radio career, Schmitz lived and worked in China; first as a teacher in the Peace Corps, then as a freelance print and video journalist.
Below is a selection of Rob's stories:
In China, concerns grow over environmental costs of Apple products, November 28, 2011
Chinese students, too qualified to be true?, November 9, 2011
Chinese press comes down hard on alleged Apple pollution, September 21, 2011
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Selections from Rob Schmitz (Marketplace)
05/15/2012 02:02 AM
#1
Selections from Rob Schmitz (Marketplace)
Rob Schmitz reported on the trend of Chinese parents seeking American college educations for their children. "Too qualified to be true." He says 130,000 Chinese students study in the U.S. Colleges welcome the international students' tuition payments, their diversity, and hard work. What Marketplace radio program has discovered, however, is that a lot of these students had help in China falsifying their college entrance applications. Apparently, for $6,000, a Chinese company can just about guarantee students acceptances in US colleges. Transcripts are fudged; personal essays are forged. Having just dealt with some falsifying of essays in my 12th grade senior class in Los Angeles, I'm not surprised by any pattern of shifty practices to achieve academic glory. But, apparently, there's a business model going on in China that colleges need to be aware of.
edited by egoebel on 4/27/2012
Rob Schmitz reported on the trend of Chinese parents seeking American college educations for their children, has opened new joint ventures business between China and US and US. For those students who can not afford to come to US, they can go to Chinese Universtiy that has joint venture with US university. Example of this university is SIAS University in Henan, China (www.sias.edu.cn), that university hires professors from US to teach there.Students from that university will get 2 diplomas when they graduate, one diploma from SIAS University in China, and another diploma from a university in the East Coast in US. I had visited that school few years ago, the Chinese students were all speaking English, it was like a US university. Vice versa, there are also US students who goes to China University because the tuition is cheaper. Bethel Health Care, a medical school in China has a joint venture with a medical school in New York. Students goes to Liaoning, Shen Yang in China to study medicine, the annual tuition with board and lodging is only $19.000.00, after 4 years of medical schooling, students can enroll in New York for internship. Bethel Health Care only accepts US citizens.
By the way Chen Guangcheng will get his visa to the US as a student. There is a model student for our students to know about!
Does anyone know where I can find the audio of the Mike Daisey’s story by This American Life?? I know they retracted it so I am having a hard time finding it. I want my students to listen to it before we get into the controversy about it. I know Mr. Dube played part of it during the USC lecture but I cannot remember what website he used. Marketplace?