Tips on improving your business coverage

Steve Kaskovich, assistant managing editor for business at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Dave Berman, business editor of Florida Today, offered tips at the annual Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference on improving business coverage.

One of Kaskovich’s suggestions was to “be excellent at something.”

His tips:

1. Set priorities. What’s your important beat? What is the story that’s shaping your community?
2. Upgrade your staff? Have your best talent on the most important subject. Don’t hesitate to shake up your staff or adjust beats to react to news events.
3. Drill deep. Cover this beat like a glove. Spend time to develop sources and relationships that will pay off over time. Provide definitive coverage that beats ALL competitors, including the national papers.

Berman provided 10 tips. Here are a few of them:

1. Be local whenever possible. There are so many places to get national business news — including your own wire services — that it’s a more efficient use of your reporters’ time to cover local business. Pick the top three or four key business topics, and concentrate on them. 
2. Write for your reader. Not for your sources. And not to impress your boss or your competitor. Make stories easy to understand, and tell readers what it means to them. Steer clear of jargon. Make your section something people want to read every day because of all the useful information.
3. Plan ahead. We budget out our business page centerpieces 10 days in advance, and go over the lineup with our managing editor, online editor and photo editor. Of course, our lineup will change a lot over those 10 days, but it’s a great jumping off point to plan staff time, photos, graphics and online elements.
4. Steal (borrow) from the best. See what the business sections of other newspapers bigger than you are doing. There’s nothign wrong with borrowing an idea from another paper or a business magazine. Just be sure you do the story better.