Monthly Archives: March 2012
Report on Business is Canada’s most-read biz magazine
by Chris Roush
Report on Business Magazine, which is produced by the Globe and Mail in Toronto, is now the most-read business magazine in Canada, according to an survey on readership.
A Globe and Mail story states, “New data from the Print Measurement Bureau show the magazine claimed 951,000 readers over the age of 18. That is about 8 per cent more than Canadian Business, the flagship business publication of Rogers Media Inc.
“The bureau’s survey, conducted in September, 2011, showed a major decline in readership at Canadian Business, which fell 20.8 per cent among adult readers, to 820,000, from the same period a year earlier.
“A previous PMB survey in 2011 had showed Canadian Business with a slight edge over Report on Business Magazine, which is published by The Globe and Mail.
“ROB Magazine also holds a significant lead over its two main rivals in capturing highly educated, higher-income readers: 543,000 are university graduates. No other business magazine in the country tops 400,000.”
Read more here.
How a Syrian refugee influenced one business journalist
by Chris Roush
Henry Dubroff, the editor and founder of the Pacific Coast Business Times, writes about how Marwan Jabri, a Syrian refugee and banking reporter for the newspaper in Springfield, Mass., influenced him when he started working at the paper.
Dubroff writes, “Marwan had a gift for understanding the sometimes arcane accounting of the banking business. He grasped the importance of things like capital ratios and stable, low-cost deposits — things that I had studied in theory at Columbia but had not yet experienced in a real-time setting.
“He assiduously watched the banking beat and pointed out small anomalies in loan reserves or rising deposit costs. Fortunately for us, we were covering business news in the aftermath of the ‘double-dip’ recession in the early 1980s. Bank balance sheets were strengthening dramatically as real estate prices rose and interest rates tumbled from the double-digit levels forced on the economy by the Federal Reserve to break the back of inflation.
“I left the Springfield Newspapers in 1985, and Marwan retired soon thereafter. He did in 2000 at age 71.
“Marwan’s rules of the road for spotting banking problems have served me well over the years.”
Read more here.
New editor named at Pittsburgh Business Times
by Chris Roush
Howard Burns, 52, has been named editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, an American City Business Journals newspaper, and will begin April 16.
He replaces Lauren Lawley, who became the editor of the Dallas Business Journal late last year.
Managing editor Jennifer Curry writes, “A veteran journalist, he has been a reporter and editor for more than 30 years, and spent 18 years working for the Hollywood Reporter, where he was editor for four years and editorial director for one. Most recently, he served as editor of the film magazine Moving Pictures.
“A graduate of the University of Miami with a B.A. in communications, Burns began his career as a reporter on the city desk at The Miami News. He moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to become a reporter for Multichannel News, a weekly trade paper covering the cable TV industry.
”It is a distinct honor to join the ACBJ family and become the editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times,’ Burns said. ‘I look forward to bringing my passion for innovation and enterprise journalism to the pages of PBT and continue the paper’s long tradition of offering in-depth reporting and actionable information to the business professionals of western Pennsylvania.’”
Read more here.
Two leave Bloomberg TV’s London operation
by Chris Roush
Merrill Knox of TVNewser is reporting that an anchor and a producer have left Bloomberg Television’s London operations.
Knox writes, “Anchor Andrea Catherwood and producer Gary Kanofsky have both left Bloomberg TV’s London bureau.
“A Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed the departures, saying they are not related to a round of layoffs Bloomberg announced last week.
“Kanofsky’s departure comes just eight months after he joined the network as senior executive producer. Catherwood, the host of “The Last Word” on Bloomberg Europe, joined the network from ITV News in 2009.”
Read more here. Catherwood, who is from Belfast, Ireland, has also been a weekly contributor to This Morning, as well as writing for the Mail on Sunday.
Taking boring subjects and making them appealing at Businessweek
by Chris Roush
Joe Pompeo of Capital New York writes Friday about how Bloomberg Businessweek has overhauled its look and its content to make what some believe is boring content more interesting.
Pompeo writes, “They set the place up so that art directors would be sitting next to editors would be sitting next to photo editors and so on.
“‘You get this really interesting creative friction, all because Bloomberg believes in cheap office space,’ said Tyrangiel.
“But perhaps the biggest change Tyrangiel made after Bloomberg gave him the keys to Businessweek was an editorial one.
“‘There was a lot management guru bullshit, to be honest,’ he said of the magazine’s previous incarnation under McGraw Hill. “A lot of stuff about finding the best you, and I just thought, that’s insulting.’
“Instead, Tyrangiel took Businessweek in a newsier direction at a time when its core subject matter — money, finance, economics — had become one of the most important threads in the news cycle.
“‘They’d gotten out of the news business,’ he said. ‘They’d really focused on this kind of middle management, how do you get ahead. And this is in the middle of a financial crisis. … The magazine had been so fat and so rich that people believed the audience would read it out of obligation. And nobody reads out of obligation. You have to argue for your right to exist.’”
Read more here.
Remembering Dave Morrow
by Chris Roush
Josh Dawsey, a senior at the University of South Carolina, was the inaugural recipient of the David Morrow Scholarship for Business Journalism, named after the former editor in chief of TheStreet.com. He received the award earlier this month at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers‘ annual conference in Indianapolis
Dawsey writes about Morrow, noting, “Dave Morrow had asked Donald Trump the serious financial questions and had one lingering query.
“Morrow — a former editor of TheStreet.com and an alumnus of the University of South Carolina — wanted to know if Trump’s famous matted hair was real. The real estate mogul said yes and jokingly prodded Morrow to test it himself, so Morrow grabbed a lock and dutifully noted the hair as genuine.
“Morrow’s encounter with Donald Trump was among dozens of anecdotes regaled by his former colleagues during the Society of Business Editors and Writers annual conference in Indianapolis March 15-18.
“Morrow was a renowned business journalist who died in 2010 after a bout with cancer. He was only 49 but had created an enviable resume, writing for Fortune Magazine and The New York Times, among others. Morrow served on SABEW’s board and counted many of the organization’s members as close friends.”
Read more here.
Why there are no leaks from “Mad Money”
by Chris Roush
Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider writes about the lack of lacks about the content produced for “Mad Money,” the CNBC investing show hosted by Jim Cramer.
Weisenthal writes, “We’re here at the NYSE, where we just listened to Mad Money host and all around media guru Jim Cramer talk about his day, and what goes into Mad Money.
“There’s a lot of stuff that we’ll get into, but there was one thing that struck us particularly interesting: Why don’t any of Cramer’s recommendations ever leak out, given that the show is recorded right at 4 PM, and doesn’t air until later in the evening?
“He explained, only 5 people ever see the script, and then: ‘If I fear someone has leaked, I fire them.’ He might ask questions later, but there is ‘No due process.’
“Furthermore, anyone who calls in to ask a question is on mute, and can’t hear any of the show while they wait.”
Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards announced
by Chris Roush
Judges for the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants’ Excellence in Financial Journalism Awards met Thursday and selected the following winners for awards to be presented on May 1 at an awards luncheon in New York City.
These awards recognize reporters from the national and local press who contribute to a better understanding of business topics. All submitted entries submitted were published in 2011.
Book – Business/Financial: Steven Levy, for “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” (Simon & Schuster) a revealing look into the most successful and admired technology companies of our time.
Print & Online:
Business Category – News: Cam Simpson, Bloomberg News, for “Victoria’s Secret Revealed in Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton,” an in-depth report on how an effort to address the endemic use of child labor instead created incentives for exploitation in Burkina Faso in West Africa.
Business Category – Features: John Helyar, Carol Hymowitz and Mehul Srivastava, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, for “The Double Life of Rajat Gupta,” a comprehensive profile of Gupta convertly channeling business to his private firm as he ran McKinsey & Co., the world’s most prestigious consulting company.
Business Category – Opinion: Jeffrey Goldfarb, Reuters Breaking Views, for “P&G’s Pringles Partner Warrants Careful Taste,” a journalist’s commentary that upended the proposed $2.4 billion purchase of Pringles from Proctor & Gamble by Diamond Foods.
Consumer Category – News: Michael Hudson, The Center for Public Integrity, for “The Great Mortgage Cover-Up,” an in-depth series into why major banks and mortgage lenders bankrolled a wave of toxic loans that helped throw the nation’s financial system and economy into crisis.
Consumer Category -Features: Justin Rohrlich, Minyanville Media, for “Insider Trading Laws Do Not Apply to Members of Congress. No Seriously,” An investigation of the arcane rules that allow members of Congress to trade using inside information.
Consumer Category -Opinion: Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal, for “The Intelligent Investor,” a weekly column that exposes conflicts of interest and risky complexities that many investors would have overlooked otherwise.
Television:
Category – Segment Running 10 Minutes or Less: Tara Lynn Wagner, NY1, for “Money Matters: Golden Years?,” A series focusing on the financial realities facing the baby boomer generation as they approach retirement.
Category –Segment Running More than 10 Minutes: Carol Massar, Matt Miller, Carole Zimmer, Ted Fine, Bloomberg Television, for “Race for the Next Facebook,” an in-depth look at the start-ups and dreamers on the verge of success.
Radio:
Category – Segment Running 10 Minutes or Less: None
Category – Segment Running More than Ten Minutes: Carole Zimmer, Mark Mills, Nick Civatta, Al Maykers, Anthony Mancini, WBBR Bloomberg Radio, “Stalking a Silent Killer,” a documentary examining the business of ovarian cancer.
Judges for the awards included members of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and the New York Financial Writers Association.
A pressing style question for biz reporters
by Chris Roush
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 hyphen and one pah. {NSE OOMPAH<GO>} shows that most stories using oompah referred to music in German beer halls.
One Bloomberg News reporter wrote in to state, ” Those are oompah loompahs in your picture, not an oompah band. PS not sure we have a ruling on oompah loompah oompah bands.”
Economist hits 1 million Facebook fans
by Chris Roush
The Economist has reached the milestone of 1 million fans on Facebook, reports T.J. Raphael of Folio magazine.
Raphael writes, “Nick Blunden, global publisher of digital editions for The Economist, says the print brand’s status has translated well to the social Web.
“The number is interesting — The Economist has a global circulation of 1.5 million, which includes print and digital figures, according to an Audit Bureau of Circulations July-December 2011 report. While the number of online fans could surpass that of actual circulation, The Economist is still coming out ahead of its competition: TIME has just over 489,000 fans; The Wall Street Journal has just over 471,000 fans; The Atlantic with just over 91,000, and Bloomberg Businessweek with just over 47,500.
“‘We have focused, primarily, on the best ways and the most engaging ways to put content into social media and primarily Facebook,’ says Blunden. ‘Our view is that The Economist has always been a very social brand and had a great deal of social currency, even long before social media existed. People used to wander around with a copy of The Economist under their arm to signify they were interested in the world. Now, in the social media world, if you want to associate yourself with The Economist and show you’re interested in the world, you share our content on Facebook and Twitter. What Facebook has allowed us to do is unlock the inherent social value of our content.’
“Blunden says the best way for his brand to post content on Facebook is through timing and targeted editorial choices instead of taking content and posting it online as and when it becomes available.”
Read more here.
