SABEW to offer conference call on covering the economy next week
Day after day, economic stories get Page 1 play, reflecting the turmoil in the housing and credit markets, the soaring price of fuel, the wave of buyouts and layoffs. Which numbers are the most important? What data and coverage can be localized? How can you get people into data-based stories? The Society of American Business […]
Why top real estate stories appear elsewhere
Bill Goss, the real estate editor for the New York Times, has been taking questions from readers this week, and one wanted to know why all of the good real estate stories appear in other sections of the paper, like Business and the A front. Goss replied, “There’s a simple reason that you find news […]
Missing the credit card story
Dean Starkman of Columbia Journalism Review writes how the traditional business press wrote traditional stories about the credit card industry while more important stories were being uncovered by non-traditional outlets. Starkman wrote, “These non-business-press sources place their credit-card story within a broader context, that of a besieged American middle class caught in an iron vice […]
WSJ wins National Journalism Award for biz reporting
The Wall Street Journal was named the winner in business and economics reporting category in the Scripps Howard Foundation’s National Journalism Awards. The Journal receives $10,000 and the William Brewster Styles award for its series “Debt Bomb,” which explained and analyzed the housing crisis for readers, telling the mortgage-market crash story from all sides. Finalists in […]
What will the happy biz media do in the future?
TheDeal.com executive editor Yvette Kantrow wants to know what perpetually happy business news media such as Fox Business Network and personal finance magazines will cover when the economy turns sour. Kantrow wrote, “It’s a question not just for Fox Business Network, but for much of retail business journalism, notably the personal finance media, as it […]
Forbes' publisher needs to check facts
Orange County Register business columnist Jon Lansner writes that Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard needs to check his facts before he goes off slamming business journalists for leading the economy into a recession. Lansner took particular offense at Karlgaard stating that the savings and loan crisis costing $700 billion. Lansner wrote, “Sounds good. But wrong. $700 […]
A traditional biz section design
Roger Hedges, assistant managing editor of business at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock, writes that the paper’s business & farm section typically takes a traditional design structure. Hedges says, “We decided the top business story of the day on Jan. 18 was the macro-economic picture and put that story on Page 1A. (The story […]
The Star-Ledger uses graphics to explain stagflation
Kevin Shinkle, the business editor at the Newark Star-Ledger, explains the decision to use a large graphic and visually appealing design on the front page of its business section Friday to explain stagflation to its readers. “The economy and Bernanke’s testimony was the news of the day,” said Shinkle. “We tried to do something a […]
The AP and the R word
Hal Morris, writing on his Grumpy Editor blog, complains that the Associated Press is emphasizing the prospect of a recession too much in its coverage. Morris wrote, AP writer Martin “Crutsinger pulled information from a National Association for Business Economics survey of 49 economists in declaring, ‘Because of all the bad news, more and more […]
The biz media hates the market
TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs writes Monday that the business media’s recent negativity toward the economy signals that the stock market might have hit a bottom. Fuchs wrote, “The Business Press Maven is not one to call short-term trading moves, but conventional wisdom is always reflected in the price of stocks. And the business media […]
