Dallas business reporting

I spent Wednesday in Dallas doing a workshop for the Reynolds Center and got to visit with some of the business desk at the Morning News. One of the assistant business editors there is Alan Goldstein, who worked at the St. Pete Times with me in the late ’80s.

I was impressed with their section. They have a news hole that’s larger than comparable papers, I believe, and several columnists wrote in the Wednesday section that I saw. They were preparing for the impact of the next hurricane on Dallas.

I also met a new business reporter for the McAllen, Texas paper. His name is Mark Whittaker, and he’s the only business writer for a paper with a circulation of about 50,000. In other words, he could probably use some help, and since he’s new to the beat, he’s learning on the job. He’s only got one public company in McAllen, so a lot of his coverage is about private companies, which can be a tough nut to crack as well.

It was interesting to compare the level of talent and content in the Dallas paper and the McAllen paper. Few people realize how much business reporting can vary in terms of content and knowledge depending on the level of expertise of the staff. I saw it in an extreme contrast on Wednesday.