When business journalists use bad quotes
Wall Street is throwing the most money at U.S. energy companies since at least 2000 amid growing confidence that the industry is emerging from the worst downturn in a generation. – Bloomberg Don’t get confused. Contrary to popular opinion (and many careless business writers), “Wall Street” usually doesn’t throw money at companies at all. The […]
From softball reporter to business reporter
Tom Henderson of Crain’s Detroit Business writes about how his shared love of softball with Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch, who died this weekend, turned him into a business reporter. Henderson writes, “The caller was the editor of the Freep‘s business section. He wanted to do a profile of Ilitch, who then, and later, […]
Bloomberg’s O’Brien on the craft of biz news commentary
Timothy O’Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg View and Bloomberg Gadfly, talks about the art of business news commentary. Here is an excerpt: What is the primary goal of Bloomberg Gadfly, and Bloomberg View as a whole? We’re the commentary arm of Bloomberg News and our goal is to offer our readers a lens on the […]
When the largest company HQ in Peoria decides to move
Matt Buedel is a business reporter at the Peoria Journal-Star newspaper in Illinois, a city whose biggest headquarters — Caterpillar Inc. — announced last week it was moving to the Chicago area. Buedel has been covering the manufacturer since March 2016. He grew up in Springfield and has a journalism degree from Bradley University. He […]
How the Chicago Tribune took on the pharmaceutical industry
Jackie Spinner of Columbia Journalism Review writes about how the Chicago Tribune’s series on the pharmaceutical industry came about. Spinner writes, “The three-part investigative project focuses on hidden interactions between prescription medicines that could have life-threatening consequences if taken together. The first of the ‘Dangerous Doses’ series, published a year ago, identified four potentially unsafe drug […]
When the name of a boat is not a business news story
“Turns out overdraft fees are still big moneymakers for some banks. So much so that a former chief executive of a midsize bank named his boat after the fee.” – Washington Post “Among the juicy details included in a new consumer advocacy lawsuit filed Thursday was this one: The former CEO of a Midwest bank actually […]
WSJ’s Baker: I have not banned “lie” when covering Trump
Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker expands on comments he made Sunday on “Meet the Press” about using the word “lie” when referring to false statements made by president-elect Donald Trump. Baker writes, “Note that I said I’d be ‘careful’ in using the word ‘lie.’ I didn’t ban the word from the Journal’s lexicon. Evidently, this carefulness […]
WSJ to avoid using “lies” when writing about Trump
The Wall Street Journal will not use the word “lie” when referring to president-elect Donald Trump’s statements that are false because it implies moral intent, editor Gerald Baker said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Kate Sheppard of The Huffington Post writes, “Baker appeared on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’ Sunday, where he described some of President-elect Donald Trump’s […]
Why a Quartz reporter is suing the government for immigration data
David Yanofsky, a reporter at Quartz, writes about his lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce asking a judge to compel the release of two databases that chronicle the flow of people into the United States. Yanofsky writes, “My lawsuit concerns two databases maintained by the ITA: One contains anonymous immigrations records; the other, statistics […]
The biz writer who covers philosophy and psychology
Olivia Goldhill, a writer for the financial news site Quartz, is one of just a handful of journalists — business or otherwise — in the United States who writes on philosophy and psychology. Recently, Goldhill has written about whether driverless cars should kill their own passengers to save a pedestrian, interviewed the Oxford philosopher who gave Elon Musk the […]
