A suggested guide for quote approvals
In one of my first posts for Talking Biz 2, I wrote about the process of quote approvals and its prevalence in business journalism. The esteemed New York Times columnist David Carr took up the story on Monday. He writes about his own experience: I’ve had my own encounters. Within the past year, I’ve had […]
How to become a freelance tech journalist
Maria Korolov, editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business, has a nice primer for those who want to become freelance tech reporters. Korolov writes, “If you’re just starting out, you either want to pick an area that you know a lot about, or an area that nobody knows anything about. “So, for example, if you want […]
The financial media’s issue: Making everything a problem for the little guy
Felix Salmon of Reuters writes that a big problem for the financial media is that it tries to turn every story into a problem for the average person. Salmon writes, “One of the problems with financial journalism is its rather kludgy attempts to appeal to a general audience. If something bad happens, for instance, it […]
Bloomberg News editor clarifies position on quotes
Susan Goldberg, an executive editor at Bloomberg News, sent the following message to the staff she oversees about allowing sources to change quotes: You no doubt saw the recent New York Times story that said that we and several other news organizations, including the Times and the Post, allow sources to have “quote approval” or […]
How to tell a headline and lead has been written by Bloomberg’s Winkler
Jim Romenesko has a post from an anonymous Bloomberg News staffer about how to tell when editor in chief Matthew Winkler has written a story’s headline and lead. Some of the clues: * First telltale: The theme. The biggest bugaboo right now at Bloomberg is how wrong the credit companies are and have been. Probably […]
Dean Starkman on the importance of biz journalism in democracy
The following is an excerpt from Dean Starkman’s introduction to The Best Business Writing 2012. In this excerpt, Starkman describes the role the business press has played in the past and continues to play in the present: The crash and ongoing crisis remind us that, in a democracy, it’s not enough to understand only political […]
Biz journalists, PR and embargoes
Sabrina Husain, a student at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, writes about the relationship between business journalists and PR professionals over embargoed material. Husain writes, “The public relations embargo has been a significant point of conflict between these two groups. An embargo is a tool used by PR professionals to give […]
A pressing style question for biz reporters
This was in the Bloomberg News weekly notes this week: Q. What’s our style for writing the word oom-pah, or is it oom-pah-pah? A. This word isn’t in The Bloomberg Way nor the AP Stylebook, so the next reference to check is Webster’s New World College Dictionary. It gives the spelling as oompah, with no […]
Investigative reporting must be fair to subjects
David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter for the New York Times who now writes a column for Reuters, spoke at the University of South Carolina on Wednesday as part of its journalism program’s business journalism initiative. Julianne Lewis of the Daily Gamecock writes, “Johnston said his stories have sent many people to prison, […]
Simplifying financial news stories
By Jeanna Smialek Jake Bernstein and ProPublica colleague Jesse Eisinger‘s series on Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis won a Pulitzer Prize for making Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis understandable to a broad audience — and now Bernstein is spreading his ideas about simplifying financial stories. Speaking at Saturday’s Society of American […]
