Categories: OLD Media Moves

Business press: Cold, hard information

David Sirota, writing on the Huffington Post, explains why he likes business news stories, and in particular a BusinessWeek story about the supposed labor shortage.

Sirota wrote, “I’ve said many times before that the best place for information is the business press. The material is written for people who need cold, hard information in order to make money, rather than for the professional political pontificators who are aroused by Beltway spin. The only challenge when reading the business press is to get through the corporate PR.

“But if you have the patience, you will find out what’s really going on and who is lying to you. This week’s piece in Businessweek on the job market is a good example.

“The article begins with a sensationalist headline that only Bill Gates and Tom Friedman could love: ‘Where Are All The Workers? Companies worldwide are suddenly scrambling to manage a labor crunch.’ This is the public rationale from corporate executives (especially in the high-tech industries) for massive job outsourcing and exploitation of the H-1B program: We can’t find the workers we need.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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