Behind a Monday profile story
Melissa Harris, the Chicago Tribune business columnist, writes about why she decided to profile Chicago businessman Marty Nesbitt, a friend of President Barack Obama. Harris writes, “At a TribU class on current events Monday night, a participant asked why I chose to write a profile on ‘first friend’ Marty Nesbitt, and why it ran in […]
Boeing’s 787 headache
The news reports about troubles with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner have been abundant since the fleet was grounded. Two separate incidences – one in the U.S. and one in Japan – led to regulators stopping the planes from flying on Jan. 16. And Boeing is still in the news. On Sunday, the U.S. investigation released additional […]
Let’s stop using the word “exclusive” for our stories
The other night I sat down to read and watch the news – and the big story of the day was Lance Armstrong’s doping admission. First up for me was a venerable New York-based financial-centric newspaper who basically said they knew it all along, after all they had reported first in an “exclusive” that Lance’s […]
Dallas biz columnist celebrates 20 years
Cheryl Hall, the business columnist for the Dallas Morning News, celebrated 20 years of writing her column by recounting some of her most memorable interviews. Hall writes, “My column started in 1992, focusing primarily on local business figures and entrepreneurs. Along the way, I’ve met my share of business celebrities. “Many were relatively unknown at […]
Why all journalism is tech journalism now
Jon Evans of TechCrunch writes about how all journalism is now tech journalism in some form or another. Evans writes, “The problem is that everything is tech now. Software is eating the world – a world increasingly festooned with new hardware. War, art, politics, romance, sports, business — these are all tech topics now. Every human […]
WSJ’s editorial page had disclosure problems in 2012
Eric Hananoki of Media Matters writes about how The Wall Street Journal regularly failed to disclose the election-related conflicts of interest of its op-ed writers. Hananoki writes, “The paper’s editorial page published op-eds from 12 writers without disclosing their roles as advisers to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. It also didn’t regularly disclose columnist Karl Rove’s close ties to the […]
The access and accountability balancing act in business journalism
Dean Starkman of Columbia Journalism Review writes about the balancing act of access and accountability by most business journalists in the wake of New York Times business editor Larry Ingrassia announcing last week he was moving to another job at the paper. Starkman writes, “Like I say, it’s a balancing act. And that absolutely means […]
How to be well-liked as a business reporter
Silas Lyons, the editor of the Redding Record Searchlight in California, writes about the paper’s business writer David Benda and how readers like his writing more now that the economy has turned around. Lyons writes, “For a while, I don’t think I went a day without someone suggesting David should be fired. “For his part, […]
A review of the 2012 Financial Follies
The society correspondent for Talking Biz News once again attended the Financial Follies, hosted by the New York Financial Writers’ Association, and filed this report: Thank god 2012 was an election year. And the year of the biggest storm to hit New York City in a really, really, really long time. For once, the Financial […]
Google could hurt small online sites
The Federal Trade Commission is still looking for charges that will stick to Google, according to Quartz. But Sunday’s New York Times had an interesting story pointing out the problems businesses can face when Google changes its search algorithm or traffic funneled from the search engine drops. The story profiles online retailer Nextag, which earlier […]
