Wal-Mart, blogs and the New York Times' Michael Barbaro

The blogging world is all atwitter about New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro and his line of questioning toward blogs in relation to Wal-Mart, the world’s largest company and the responsibility of 5 percent of the GDP. Seems there has been an outpouring of positive blogging toward Wal-Mart in recent months, and Barbaro, who has […]

Covering the next energy crisis

This afternoon, I moderated a panel at the “Covering the Next Energy Crisis” held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On the panel were business reporter Greg Edwards from the Richmond Times Dispatch, AP energy reporter Brad Foss and Bloomberg energy editor Rob Dieterich. Each of them provided good suggestions and comments […]

The Washington Post on cutting stock listings

No, the Post is not announcing that it is cutting stock listings like the Chicago Tribune, Providence Journal, Newsday, Rocky Mountain News, Orlando Sentinel and other papers have in the past six weeeks. Reporter Steven Livingston covered the story from the angle of how newspapers are developing a print/web relationship. Livingston writes: “The Rocky Mountain […]

Time to cover more women in business stories

Lori Hope, editor of Bay Area Business Women, quotes some statistics from a recent study of how women are covered in the media that should be downright embarrassing for anyone who believes in trying to present an accurate reflection of the business community in the business section. Hope writes: “The 2005 Global Media Monitoring Project […]

Evidence of the Ridder family management acumen

If you have been following events in journalism lately, then you know that the once-venerable Knight-Ridder newspaper chain is considering bids to sell the company — in whole or piecemeal — to bidders who have until later this month to submit their best offers. The new issue of the Columbia Journalism Review has an analysis […]

Biz reporters who smoke cigars to find sources

Those who practice the art of business journalism don’t typically look to the alternative weekly newspapers that inhabit most metropolitan communities for tips on how they practice their craft. But deep in the crevasses of the Weekly Planet, the alternative rag in Tampa, is a nice reporting tip that brings back memories. The Planet has […]

Is the business press fair game for the SEC?

CNBC commentator Charles Gasparino, who is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote a commentary for Newsweek magazine on the recent actions of the SEC to subpoena business reporters as part of its investigation into an investment firm. Publicly, the SEC has backed off enforcing the subpoenas. Gasparino, however, concludes that is not the case […]

Nightly Business Report's Linda O'Bryon

I interviewed Linda O’Bryon, the senior vice president and general manager of NBR Enterprises/WPBT2, which produces Nightly Business Report, seen nationally on more than 250 public television stations, earlier this week for a Q&A. The full Q&A appears on www.bizjournalismhistory.org. Here are some excerpts that I found interesting: Q: How hard was it to get […]

CNBC piece on China is called "bad"

The Demagogue blog criticized Maria Bartiromo’s reporting on CNBC recently regarding a piece the business cable network ran about China. The blog stated, “Bartiromo had two guests discuss whether Google, Microsoft and other tech companies are wrong to placate China’s thought-control, totalitarian rulers. Both guests spouted the same message that these tech companies sounded during […]

IBD article on newspaper circulation is debunked

Late last week, I sent an e-mail to the UNC journalism faculty about an upcoming article in Investor’s Business Daily on newspaper circulation. The article’s main thesis was that the circulation woes of the newspaper business are not as bad as many newspapers make it out to be. Newspapers have countered the declines in paper […]