How a mistake makes it into the business section
Patrick Pexton, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, writes about how the business section of the paper recently had an error. Pexton writes, “The Natural Resources Defense Council is one of the country’s largest environmental groups with 1.3 million members, an annual budget of $95 million and a staff of some 300 lawyers, scientists and […]
How business journalists can use — and should use — social media
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE Business journalists needs to use social media to find stories and sources, accordig to a group of reporters and editors who spoke Friday in New York. “There [are] four aspects to social media when using it professionally,” said Tiffany Black, a former producer with Inc.com. “One is to listen. Two is to […]
TV news stories on jobs ignore unemployment data
Julia Seymour of the Business & Media Institute reports Thursday that more than three-fourths of the September jobs stories (77 percent) on broadcast television didn’t mention the 9.1 unemployment rate at all. Seymour writes, “Several stories put a positive spin on the horrendous jobs situation and only four stories mentioned that more than 14 million […]
How Reuters data could transform its journalism
Justin Ellis of the Nieman Journalism Lab writes about Reuters data editor Reg Chua and how he is looking to tap into the company’s data products to improve its journalism. Ellis writes, “That fundamental act of packaging and imparting information is what Reg Chua is concerned with. Since being hired as data editor for Thomson […]
How to better pitch business journalists
The public relations staff at Thomson Reuters interviewed some of the company’s business journalists about what they prefer in receiving in terms of story pitches from PR staff. Here is some of the advice: 1) Do background research on your journalist first. Monitor their Twitter stream and their blog. What do they write about and whom […]
A day in the life of a business journalist
Joris Luyendijk of The Guardian in London has a humorous first-person account of an anonymous financial journalist in Britain that sounds eerily similar to what an American business journalist does each day. In part, it reads: “A working day in the life of this financial journalist? Well, actually, that can be quite boring I’m afraid. […]
Business media overuses Moody’s Zandi
Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review writes Friday that business journalists call on Moody’s economist Mark Zandi too much and need to broaden their source lists. Chittum writes, “Who’s Mark Zandi? He’s the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a Keynesian McCain adviser back in 2008 who supports the Obama stimulus, and a quote machine […]
Why anonymous sources are important in covering business
Henry Blodget of The Business Insider writes about why his site grants anonymity to sources and why that’s a necessity in covering business news. Blodget writes, “In the business world, ~99.999% of potential sources are not authorized to speak to the media–on background or on the record. Most of the rest, meanwhile, write press releases. […]
Business journalists and a code of ethics for economists
Felix Salmon of Reuters was interviewed by Craig Silverman about a proposed code of ethics for the American Economists Association and how that might affect the relationship between economists and business journalists. Here are some excerpts: If you were aware of it, I’m wondering if you have thoughts on whether this presents a problem for […]
Company web sites fail to help reporters
A study by the Financial Times and Bowen Craggs & Co. has discovered that corporate web sites do not provide the information that journalists need to do their jobs more effectively. David Bowen writes, “There are obviously great differences, depending on the media and the individuals, but here are some generalisations: “They do not want […]
