TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Business journalists need to be able to find stories from numbers, but also should be able to tell those stories in a way that’s compelling to the average person, according to the co-anchor of “Nightly Business Report.”
“To understand the role of money and its terms is key to furthering your career,” said Tom Hudson, who spoke to journalism students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Learn how to look at these sets of data and ask yourself, ‘What’s the story?'”
Business reporters should also be able to look at numbers and see what’s missing from a story, and shouldn’t complain that the numbers are too complex to understand. “To understand the role of money and its terminology is key to furthering your career,” he said.
Hudson became the new co-anchor, along with Susie Gharib, of the nightly business and financial news show on PBS, at the end of 2009. The show, which airs on more than 200 stations across the country, has undergone an overhaul in the past year in a bid to attract new viewers.
Finding people and examples to help tell business and financial-related stories helps explain the significance of the topics to readers who may not otherwise understand, added Hudson. He noted that every question should focus on money.
“People are much more open to tell you about some tryst, one way or another, than they are to tell you about how much money they have in their checking account,” said Hudson. “We need writers to provide context, to provide the human flair.”
Hudson pointed to a story from “Nightly Business Report” last month that took Target Corp.’s $1 billion worth of renovations to more than 300 of its stores and explained to the readers how much more they were likely to spend on a trip to the retailer after one of the stores had been overhauled.
“It gets down to understanding the broad forces in the economy…and to tell stories that are relatable and accessible,” he said. “We need to be approachable, accessible and interesting.”
Hudson added that the stories on “Nightly Business Report” include more visuals than business news stories on CNBC or Bloomberg Television, which he cited as its main competitors.
“Our mission is to empower people to make better financial decisions,” said Hudson. “Nightly Business Report”‘s viewers “come to the program with higher expectations.”
Hudson also said that he’d like to see the show cover more international business stories. “Some of it is just having the time and resources,” he said.
