Why business stories are often about people
Sahar Majid of the International Journalists Network interviewed Philadelphia Inquirer business reporter Diane Mastrull about her job. Majid writes, “Business is not the kind of beat that can be handled in isolation, because so many other story topics — education, health, travel, marriage, divorce — are connected with money in one way or the other, Mastrull said. ‘It […]
How the LA Times broke the Wells Fargo story
Former Los Angeles Times business reporter E. Scott Reckard spoke to Columbia Journalism Review’s Pete Vernon about how he uncovered fraud within Wells Fargo that resulted in the bank paying $185 million in fines last week. Here is an excerpt: Going back to the beginning of your reporting on Wells Fargo, what was the process that led […]
Morningstar has closed 10Kwizard.com
Morningstar has closed the 10kwizard.com Securities and Exchange Commission document service used by many business journalists. Nadine Youssef, a Morningstar spokeswoman, told Talking Biz News: We want to simplify and streamline our product lineup and focus on our core customer groups. The primary users of Morningstar Document Research are law firms and accounting firms, clients […]
Why a business columnist wrote about homelessness
Dan McSwain, the business columnist of the San Diego Union-Tribune, answered questions about why he decided to write about the city’s homelessness problem. Here is an excerpt: Q: You’re a business columnist. Why homelessness? A: I like a good mystery. The number of people living on the street in downtown San Diego has jumped by […]
McGraw Center awards grants for biz reporting projects
Four veteran journalists have won grants of up to $15,000 as recipients of the fourth round of the McGraw Fellowships for Business Journalism. Two of the winning projects will explore challenges facing the modern pharmaceutical industry: one centers on the inadequate regulation of generic drugs produced around the globe, while the other examines the difficulty of stemming long-standing problems in […]
How not to Gawker yourself: What we can learn
As a journalism educator, newsroom lawyer, writer and frequent panelist on media law issues, I have been asked several times about the impact of the famous “Hulk Hogan” case against Gawker. Almost every newsroom lawyer I know has (at least privately) given the same flippant answer: “Easy. Don’t publish secretly-made sex tapes.” But that answer, […]
Quartz stories: Smart but approachable
Financial news site Quartz aims for content that is smart but approachable, said its managing editor on Wednesday. “That’s a really powerful way to tell a story,” said Heather Landy in a conversation in Quartz’s new offices in New York. She gave two examples of such content. The first was a story from May about changes […]
Company sues ex-worker for providing info to Bloomberg reporter
WeWork Companies Inc. has filed a lawsuit against a former employee who gave company financial information to a Bloomberg News reporter. Herbert Lash of Reuters writes, “In a complaint filed late on Friday with the New York Supreme Court for Manhattan, WeWork accused Joanna Strange, who was fired June 10, of unlawful access to its computers […]
Investigating business and finance and the Pulitzer Prizes
Alicia Shepard of Nieman Reports writes about how many Pulitzer Prize-winning stories focus on corporations and financial interests even those there’s no business reporting category. Shepard writes, “The Pulitzers have been awarded to reporters covering business as far back as 1921 when The Boston Post won the Public Service award for exposing Charles Ponzi’s moneymaking schemes […]
How a biz reporter tackled covering the gaming industry
Roland Li is a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times covering real estate and economic development. Li is also the author of “Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports,” released earlier this month from Skyhorse Publishing. This is the most comprehensive history of the growth of the competitive gaming industry, including interviews with over […]
