What business journalists can get out of an MBA

Louise Story of The New York Times writes for a Columbia University website, Covering Business, about how an MBA can help a business journalist.

Story writes, “Accounting, Statistics, Excel – if those sound like dirty words to you, you might consider forcing yourself to learn them.  The basic concepts of accounting – flows versus stocks, for instance – come up not only for business reporters, but for political reporters looking at budgets and foreign reporters examining international aid. Or take “a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people botch that one, but it is a basic financial rule known as the time value of money and it’s critical for reporters sizing up a company’s worth. As for Excel, if you gain confidence with it, as B-school forces you to, then functions like pivot tables and filters will become your secret weapon in journalism, helping you spot stories that other people miss.

“In 2009, I wondered if bank pay would be going up or down after the financial crisis. I couldn’t look at total compensation at the banks because some had larger workforces than others.  I had to look at compensation per employee. So into the bank financial statements I went. I designed a basic Excel spreadsheet and hours later, the result was in: bank pay was going up. Ditto on stock market volatility. Lots of traders were saying 2011 was more volatile, but they were speaking anecdotally. So I plugged the year’s stock closing pricing data into Excel, and soon, I had an answer. Last year, I wondered how much states give companies in tax credits and other subsidies. Once again, a little numeric literacy came in handy. In all these cases, I was able to give readers answers that didn’t exist without my analyses.”

Read more here.