I joined CoJMC as an associate professor in the fall of 2009 and retired as a full professor in August 2023. In that time, I taught a broad array of journalism undergraduate and graduate courses and served as graduate chair. My specialty was business and economic journalism and, collaborating with the College of Business, I developed a coterie of courses leading to a master's certificate in the area. I also helped a number of undergraduates get internships at Bloomberg News. I spent a semester in Beijing in 2011, teaching graduate students in business and economic journalism, and since then have taught the topic to undergraduates in Shanghai in short summer courses over several years, including a class in July 2024. I have written three books and recently co-edited a fourth and I now keep my hand in through a Substack column about journalism, politics and other topics at josephweber.substack.com.

My areas of interest are varied. My most recent book, a volume I co-edited called "The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism," focused on the state of business and economics journalism around the world and involved the work of some 44 scholars. Earlier, I wrote a biography of an influential economist, "Rhymes with Fighter: Clayton Yeutter, American Statesman." Before that, I focused on people who join cults in two books, "Divided Loyalties: Young Somali Americans and the Lure of Extremism" and "Transcendental Meditation in America: How a New Age Movement Remade a Small Town in Iowa." I also wrote an array of papers and magazine pieces dealing with China, with cults and with journalism education, particularly in business and economics.

From the start of my time at CoJMC, I held an endowed professorship, as the Jerry and Karla Huse Professor of News-Editorial. I became a full professor in August 2022, after serving as an associate professor since the fall of 2009. I also served as a visiting professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in summers of 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2024, and at Tsinghua University in Beijing for the fall semester of 2011.
Before joining the college, I worked for 35 years in journalism, including 22 years at BusinessWeek Magazine. I served in four bureaus around North America, leaving as the magazine's chief of correspondents and Chicago Bureau Chief. Earlier, I worked as a business and economics reporter for The Rocky Mountain News of Denver, a reporter in New York City for Dun's Business Month, and a general assignment reporter for The Home News in New Brunswick, N.J., where I started in journalism during college as a proofreader and then as a copyboy.
Over my career, I won various awards, including a Certificate of Recognition for Contributions to Students at UNL, the SCCE Journalism Award from the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, the Excellence in Financial Journalism Award from the New York State Society of CPAs, the Peter Lisagor Award, from the Headline Club of Chicago - Society of Professional Journalists (twice), a Distinguished Editorial Achievement Award from McGraw-Hill Cos., the Communications Award from the National Easter Seal Society, and the Morton Margolin Prize for Distinguished Business Reporting from the University of Denver.

I earned my master's degree in journalism, an M.S.J., at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1981, where I specialized in business and economics journalism.  I earned my bachelor's degree in English at Rutgers College in 1977, with a concentration of courses in Asian Studies.

My wife and I have three adult children who have given us eight grandchildren, so far, and they keep us busy. I find time, however, to volunteer at a ski area in Colorado, where we live. After running 16 marathons and many half-marathons and shorter runs, I try to keep fit, though it's challenging in the mountains where we live, at 9,200 feet.