Dell refuses to divulge number for layoffs to reporter
Scott Sexton, a columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal, writes Tuesday about the difficulty one of the paper’s reporters had in getting the exact number of employees work at a Dell plant in the area after layoffs were announced. Sexton writes, “In the days after the announcement of layoffs, finding out how many people worked at […]
Covering business execs in tabloid fashion
Brian Stelter of the New York Times writes Friday how the tabloid press and more traditional media are now looking to cover the behind-the-scenes lives of corporate executives, their parties and their use of private jets. Stelter writes, “Tabloids aren’t the only ones wagging their fingers. In recent months, network news divisions have relied more […]
Be careful what you send a business reporter via e-mail
Josh Flory, a business reporter at the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee, posts an amusing e-mail he received a year ago about a real estate project after he inquired about the deal. Unfortunately for the developer, it included comments not intended for publication. Flory posts: “It also included a draft version of the press release, […]
Tracking the Merck/Schering-Plough coverage
Dean Rotbart of NewsBios spent Monday live blogging about the coverage that Merck’s pending acquisition of Schering-Plough. Here are some excerpts: You won’t find any streaming video on the Merck-Schering combination at WSJ.com, unlike January 26th when Pfizer agreed to buy Wyeth. Why not? Could it be because last month the Journal laid off long-time […]
The issue of writing about someone
Michael Roberts of Denver Westword interviews former Rocky Mountain News finance editor David Milstead about his coverage of the paper’s demise and whether he considered going to work for the rival Denver Post. Here is an excerpt: WW: As you know, shortly after the announcement about the sale of the Rocky, we published a feature […]
Live blogging an annual meeting? Not if Apple can stop you
CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman promised his readers and viewers that he’d be live blogging the Apple Computer annual meeting, but the company barred anyone from bringing in iPhones, laptops and other communication devices. That didn’t stop some, however. Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune notes that a few were able to get away with it. Read […]
Dolan Media reports 10 percent increase in profits
Dolan Media, the parent company of a number of business newspapers, reported fourth-quarter profits that rose 10 percent due to help from the economic turmoil, which drives its foreclosure information business. Danielle Ulman, a reporter for the Daily Record in Baltimore, one of the papers it owns, writes, “Dolan said despite the government’s ‘well-intentioned’ actions, […]
Reuters parent reports strong results, predicts 2009 revenue growth
Thomson Reuters Corp. posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit, raised its dividend and said it expected revenue to grow in 2009 despite job cuts and reduced spending among its financial industry customers, reports Robert MacMillan and Georgina Prodhan of Reuters. MacMillan and Prodhan write, “Thomson Reuters, like its rivals Bloomberg LP and News Corp’s Dow Jones […]
Assessing TheStreet.com's fourth-quarter earnings
Peter Kafka of All Things Digital takes a look at TheStreet.com’s fourth-quarter results. Kafka writes, “No surprise that Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com had a crummy fourth quarter: Selling ads or subscriptions for a financial Web site was a tough proposition in the last three months of 2008. But maybe things will get better later on this […]
Dolan Media creates poison pill plan
Dolan Media Co., which owns a number of business newspapers across the country, announced Thursday that it had created a shareholder rights plan designed to prevent hostile takeovers. In a statement, the company said, “It is designed to protect the company and its stockholders from potentially coercive takeover practices or takeover bids and to prevent an acquirer […]
