I cover hedge funds, not skin cream
For public relations professionals, building strong relationships with reporters is the best way to collaborate on story ideas. However, PR pros are occasionally tasked with getting exposure in a completely new area, one in which they cannot rely on their current contact list. In these situations, it is best to do a thorough background check […]
Board members and business journalists
Two conversations I’ve had this week about board members of publicly traded companies have got me thinking about directors and business journalists. The first conversation was with a student in my “Business Reporting” class. Each student in the class has to write a final project paper on a publicly traded company here in North Carolina. […]
Frankie Flack: Running away from Mr. Draper
The return of “Mad Men” last night spurred my thinking about the history of public relations. As I watched the show, and the continuing growth of the fictional agency Sterling Cooper Draper Price, it occurred to me how the public relations industry back then was so young and that the power of PR was still […]
Business news media don’t always write negative
Curt Woodward of Xconomy writers a piece for 90.9 WBUR, a National Public Radio station in Boston, that takes issue with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick stating “The media here is awful to the business community” in a speech to the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. Woodward writes, “But here’s the real reason Patrick’s dig at the […]
Tech reporters need to be more than product reviewers
Evgeny Morozov argues on Slate.com that technology journalism needs to be more than just gadget reviews and business plans. Morozov writes, “As I’ve already noted, I hate trend-spotting stenographers and babbling pundits. In their place, I want to install critics and intellectuals. My ‘disruption’ of the current discourse—to use Silicon Valley’s favorite buzzword (‘disruption,’ not […]
Why April Fool’s pranks are dangerous in the biz news business
Allen Wastler, the managing editor of CNBC.com, writes about why news organizations that write April Fool’s news stories are playing with fire. Wastler writes, “You see, to some of us news is sacred. Yes, there are efforts to sex it up. Some outfits also like to push certain angles and points of view. But by […]
Why analyzing labor coverage is important
The Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America released Tuesday a summary report of their new “Labor & Unions in National TV Network News.” The CWA and Newspaper Guild funded the study directed by Federico Subervi of the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Texas State University. The report is important. There is a big story […]
Looking into OSHA
The New York Times’ Ian Urbina wrote an incredible story covering worker safety, unenforced regulations and the role of the government agency tasked with overseeing the nearly 8 million work sites in the U.S. The story, which details problems in a North Carolina cushion-making factory, shows how chronic under enforcement of safety rules can harm […]
Remembering a departed biz news desk
Ted Reed, a former business reporter for The Miami Herald who now works for TheStreet.com, writes about The Herald’s newsroom now that the paper is moving to another location. Reed writes, “When I first arrived at The Herald, I was assigned to every business section’s worst beat: real estate development. About four months later, in […]
Houston Chronicle biz columnist Steffy quits
Loren Steffy, the business columnist for The Houston Chronicle, is leaving the paper to work for a Washington-based think tank. Richard Connelly of the Houston Press writes, “Steffy is teaming with some former colleagues from Bloomberg to put out white papers and op-ed columns for a Washington, D.C. think tank, and Langford is headed to […]
