The former editor-in-chief of People's Daily and Dean of Tsinghua's School of Journalism and Communication, Fan Jingyi, died of illness on November 13 at Beijing Hospital. He was 79.

Fan, born in 1931 at Suzhou City in east China's Jiangsu Province, became the Editor-in-Chief of People's Daily in 1993 and served in that position for five years. He became Dean of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication in 2002.