Tech companies resist San Jose Mercury News request for information
Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News writes that some of the country’s largest tech companies have fought off freedom of information requests by the paper for information about their workforce. Swift writes, “Google, the company that wants to make the world’s information accessible, says the race and gender of its work force is […]
The fight for public records
Tim Arango of the New York Times looks Monday at how some media organizations continue to fight, despite the cost, for government records believed public. Arango writes, “On appeals, The A.P., which last year hired a new in-house lawyer, Karen Kaiser, will send documents, sometimes just a letter, that often resemble full legal briefs to […]
Reuters reporters, beat stories, exclusives and what editors want
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE The following e-mail was sent to Reuters reporters from Martin Howell, the news editor for company news in the Americas, about what the wire service wants from its business reporters in terms of beating the competition: “We are spending a lot of time writing and approving notes recording beats and exclusives. […]
Daily chats on developing biz stories
The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism has a new live chat about business story ideas Monday through Thursday on its Web site. On this page, the folks at the Reynolds Center kick off a discussion about the business story of the day and then offer a place for you to share questions, […]
NYT Sunday biz article fails to do basic background check
The NYTPicker site notes that the Andrew Martin article in the Sunday business section of the New York Times failed to conduct a basic background check on its topic — a businessman who provides loans to small businesses. That background check would have discovered an arrest for accessing his former employer’s computer system and deleting […]
Seven economic stories to alert readers about now
Dan Froomkin, the deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project, has seven economics-related story ideas that business journalists should be working on now because they’re bigger issues than current stories have implied. Here is one of them: No. 4: Then what? This time, we don’t have the tools to get out of a recession The […]
CNBC and GE's earnings
Peter Lauria of the New York Post catches CNBC with some questionable reporting on parent company General Electric Co.’s earnings and provides advice for any business reporter covering earnings. Lauria writes, “On Friday morning’s ‘Squawk on the Street,’ anchor Bob Pisani said GE was expecting ‘flattish growth’ for 2010. “What? “Unless Pisani was attempting to […]
The struggle to perform quality business journalism about companies
Former New York Post and Fortune business writer Roddy Boyd writes on The Big Money site about his struggles to produce aggressive business journalism about Overstock.com in the wake of its aggressive tactics to counteract his stories. Boyd writes, “Too often, though, critics underestimate the difficulty and the cost of doing aggressive business journalism that […]
Missing the story, one year later
Former Seattle Post-Intelligener business reporter Andrea James, now a junior stock analyst, writes on her personal blog about what it was like one year ago when she and the paper were scooped on the story that the paper was for sale and could close by a local TV station. James writes, “Reporter Dan Richman and […]
Bloomberg editor in chief critiques sourcing, attribution
Bloomberg editor in chief Matthew Winkler sent out a memo to the staff showing examples of improper — and proper sourcing and reminded reporters to be more vigilent in getting more precise comments from sources, according to the memo obtained by Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan. The memo states, “‘Abu Dhabi may go after some pieces in […]
