The skills business journalists should have
Michelle Cheng of Quartz writes about the skills needed to be a good business journalist based on the financial news website’s webinar last week about the topic. Cheng writes, “‘There’s a money angle to everything,’ says Blanca Torres, a producer at KQED public radio with over 17 years of business journalism, who has covered everything from […]
Covering cars through the prism of real people
Frank Witsil of the Detroit Free Press interviewed auto industry reporter Phoebe Wall Howard about her job. Here is an excerpt: FREE PRESS: I wanted to just ask you a couple other questions that also might help our audience understand what you do. One is: As an auto reporter, it seems like you have to balance writing for […]
How a Wall Street law firm threatened two business journalists
William Cohan writes for Vanity Fair about how Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss threatened business journalists Sujeet Indap and Max Frumes, the coauthors of a new book, “The Caesars Palace Coup,” about their reporting for the book. Cohan writes, “Diversion Books published The Caesars Palace Coup on March 16. In the note on sources at the end […]
Should journalists accept tech company embargoes?
Mike Ananny writes for Nieman Lab about the pros and cons of accepting an embargo from a tech company. Ananny writes, “Such embargoes can curb the power that ill-informed, reactionary ‘hot takes’ have to skew debates, misstate details, and reward the loudest voices. Companies have good reasons to share information in advance with a small set […]
NY Times econ reporter Casselman: Half of my 2020 sources were women
Half of the sources used by New York Times economics reporter Ben Casselman were women in 2020, he posted on Twitter. That’s up from 42 percent in 2019. About 20 percent of his sources were people of color, including about 17 percent of experts and 27 percent of “regular people” anecdotes. “So overall, my source list was […]
Reuters EIC Adler: Information lets readers decide
Reuters editor in chief Stephen Adler writes for Nieman Reports on the importance of providing information that lets readers make decisions. Adler writes, “That’s why we avoid loaded language and instead describe statements and behaviors in detail, in context, and without characterizing them with conclusory adjectives. “In teaching journalistic ethics, a mentor of mine, Barney Calame, made […]
Where Fortune’s Pressman gets his story ideas
“Coffee with a Journalist” host Beck Bamberger spoke with Fortune senior writer Aaron Pressman about his work. Here is an excerpt: Beck: I like it. Now, what about actually creating a story? We like to chat with folks about, well, where do you get the idea for a story? Does it get handed down to you and you […]
The use of “critics” and “experts” in the WSJ
William Power and Jennifer Hicks write in The Wall Street Journal Style & Substance blog that its reporters need to be more careful using the words “critics” and “experts.” Power and Hicks write, “‘Critics and Experts’ sounds like the name of the worst Woody Allen movie, as our Editor in Chief Matt Murray cinematically puts it. “In fact, […]
A tech reporter’s challenge: Cutting through the hype
Roberto Torres, a reporter at CIO Dive, covering the software industry, data analytics and the future of technology, spoke with UNC-Chapel Hill journalism professor Andy Bechtel about his job. Here is an excerpt: Q. What are the unique challenges to covering the technology beat? A. Given my niche beat, one crucial challenge is to consistently deliver […]
How Wirecard tried to discredit FT’s reporting
Financial Times investigative reporter Dan McCrum writes about how German company Wirecard attempted to discredit his reporting about the company. McCrum writes, “At the FT we were dumbfounded. A senior executive at a large publicly listed European company had brazenly tried to spoof our journalists into running a completely fabricated, highly price-sensitive story. This was simply outside […]
