Why aren’t journalists allowed to ask questions on earnings calls?
The quarterly earnings call is much more than a casual conversation among a company’s executives, analysts, investors and the media — it’s a carefully scripted dialogue that is practiced well in advance of a call. The planning and preparation that goes into an earnings call allow little room for journalists to fire questions that may […]
What were they thinking? Edition No. 982
Less than a year after the infamous JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s “London Whale” trading scandal that led to a $6.2 billion loss, IR Magazine gave an award to Jamie Dimon, the company’s chief executive officer, for having the best investor relations by a CEO or chairman in the large market capitalization category. Though perhaps IR […]
Avoiding errors, and what to do when they happen
The quick pace of social media and the Web have escalated the importance of getting a story right the first time and avoiding errors as a journalist, said Forbes managing editor for business news Dan Bigman in a conference call with Forbes contributors from New York Tuesday. “Just correcting an error doesn’t necessarily correct the […]
Stock market coverage: Are the continuous updates too much?
There’s the initial story, with two to four paragraphs. Then there’s the first update that adds more context, the second update and closing the story once the stock market has shut down for the day. The standard for stock market coverage, in the age of media saturation, is to continually publish updates with the most […]
How to cover sinking retailers
No company enjoys admitting that it is having financial troubles or is in danger of shutting its doors, and typically does everything in its power to spin a positive outlook to the media and consumers. This desire to maintain a successful image makes it even trickier for a reporter to cover foundering companies. In my […]
Twitter’s Luckie talks strategy for journalists
As a way to develop better social media engagement strategies, journalists should treat Twitter and other outlets as an extension of their interaction with people in their personal life rather than as a separate entity, said Mark Luckie, manager of journalism and news at Twitter in a conference call with Forbes writers from New York […]
News aggregation: Both friend and foe
News aggregation is both the best thing and the worst thing about the Internet, said Forbes leadership editor Fred Allen in a conference call Wednesday that focused on how best to leverage the powerful tool that’s become popular in the wake of social media and blogging. “There are a lot of ways to aggregate and […]
The public relations roadblock to accessing company execs
The love/hate relationship between business journalists and a company’s public relations team is a well documented one. To heighten this already contentious relationship, companies frequently use their public relations staff as a roadblock to keep business journalists from calling C-suite executives. Why do companies, particularly publicly traded companies often do this? And is it the best strategy? […]
Private equity stories proliferate as the election approaches
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s famed background as a successful businessman has given a multitude of journalists, particularly business journalists, a topic of renewed interest to cover this election season that is usually left to the few — the private equity beat. Romney’s past as a consultant and then co-founder of Bain Capital LLC, one of […]
Leveraging social media as a business journalist
The public nature of Twitter lends to a two-way conversation that allows reporters to source stories and connect with their audience, said Forbes Media LLC science and medicine reporter Mathew Herper in a conference call for contributing blog writers Thursday. “It’s like a cocktail party in a bar where everyone is shouting,” Herper said in the […]
