Stories by Chris Roush
WSJ names editor of content development
by Chris Roush
Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker sent out the following staff promotion on Thursday:
As technology advances and demand for reliable information grows apace, we face proliferating opportunities to expand our audience and increase the range of ways in which we interact with it. The most dynamic news organizations will seize those opportunities and dominate the media landscape.
To help us achieve that goal, I am pleased to announce that Elyse Tanouye is appointed to a new role as Editor, Content Development, leading efforts to broaden our journalism’s reach and impact through books, e-books, television and film, events, and specialized web projects. An initial project will focus on building a WSJ e-book line with News Corp.’s Harper Collins, following on from the successful publication last month of our ebook on Pope Francis.
Elyse is admirably equipped to achieve these objectives, having been an invaluable member of the Dow Jones news staff for 25 years. She has served as Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Ethics since 2011 and previously she was the Corporate Editor, tasked with transforming the Marketplace section to focus on business news and features. As the health and science bureau chief, Elyse led reporters whose health coverage in print and online won multiple awards. She was part of a team of reporters and editors who won recognition for their coverage of breakthroughs in AIDS therapies in the mid-1990s.
Elyse joined Dow Jones in 1988 and in addition to her unrivaled news experience, she also has an MBA, making her that rare thing in our world: a journalist who knows how to run and grow a business!
Please join me in congratulating Elyse on her new role.
CNBC.com viewers up 50 percent in April
by Chris Roush
CNBC.com was visited by 8.2 million unique users in April, up 50 percent compared to the same time period last year, according to data from comScore Media Metrix.
This is the site’s best April and third best month ever in terms of unique visitors since the site was launched.
CNBC’s iPhone application posted 589,000 unique visitors, a 7 percent increase year-over-year, according to Omniture.
CNBC mobile Web recorded 2.7 million unique visitors, a 21 percent increase year-over-year.
And CNBC’s iPad application posted 430,000 unique visitors, flat compared to last year.
Financial Times launches on Flipboard
by Chris Roush
The Financial Times launched on Flipboard on Thursday.
Flipboard users across all Android and iOS devices will now have access to a range of FT content, including news, commentary, analysis, blogs and video.
The launch marks the latest development in the FT’s digital strategy of offering its content across an array of devices and platforms with a single login and subscription. Mobile is an increasingly important channel for the FT, driving a third of all FT.com traffic and 15 percent of new digital subscriptions.
“The Financial Times’ launch on Flipboard builds on the success and popularity of our growing suite of mobile products, including the recently redesigned FT Web App, offering readers an important new channel to access FT journalism and strengthening our presence on Android, the largest smartphone operating system in the world,” said Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com, in a statement. “Full-page advertisements provide yet another opportunity for our clients to reach the FT’s powerful, international and increasingly mobile audience.”
FT.com subscribers get full, unlimited access to the latest FT content on Flipboard. All Flipboard users are able to access FT blogs and videos.
Fixing CNBC in seven simple steps
by Chris Roush
Adam Warner of Schaeffer’s Research has seven steps he believe will fix the problems at CNBC.
Here are some of them:
So here are a few suggestions, some of which are actually real suggestions.
- Hyper-focus on what’s moving today: I know this is poor long-term investing advice. It’s best to ignore the short-term noise and concentrate on longer-term planning. Short-term trading is a net losing proposition. But CNBC’s goal is eyeballs. If a stock is hot for an hour or a day, focus more there and focus less on the old standbys. I don’t need to hear every single micro development in Facebook Inc (NASDSAQ:FB), or Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), or Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), unless it is actually causing the stock to move. Long term (OK, old) investors in mansions or country clubs or five-star hotels may be your “core” audience, but short-term stock flippers are going to be your variable audience.
- You’ve said in the past you want to model CNBC on sports coverage. “Squawk Box” is kind of the pre-game show, “Power Lunch” is halftime, etc. Well, that’s great, but the trading hours are the actual game itself in that case. And in actual sports, no one knows what’s going to happen (well, except for in the NBA). So treat it like a sporting event, and go where the story takes you. If there’s a better “game” going in gold, or bitcoin, or real estate (or some small biotech), go there. As Cramer once said, there’s always a bull market somewhere, so find it in a timely manner. In short, give us more shows like “Fast Money,” in my opinion. I know this adds to the gambling nature that the U.S. News guy wants to get rid of, and he’s right, but so what? That’s what sells. You’re a network, not a financial planner. Let the actual financial planner talk some sense.
- On a related subject, fewer CEOs. I don’t need to hear every single utterance from Jamie Dimon, et. al. It adds literally no value. Between legal restrictions, general aversion to say anything controversial, and softball questions, it’s a complete waste of time. Just stop.
Read more here.
Scoops about lawmaker impact of investments is nothing new
by Chris Roush
Jack Shafer of Reuters writes about the folly of those who are now investigating how a political intelligence group was able to report to its clients about new Medicare policy, allowing its customers to buy up publicly traded health care stocks before others got the news.
Shafer writes, “Obscure, untraceable people talking to people they know or don’t know, gathering information from congressional or agency sources, asking questions that appear to be innocent but turn out to be valuable to businessmen. Say, doesn’t that sound a lot like what the financial press does every nanosecond of every minute of every hour around the world? Isn’t this what we call … journalism, as practiced by the reporters at the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, CQ, financial newsletters, CNBC, Fortune, Businessweek, business news sites and elsewhere? Not to mention the pricey financial information vended through the Bloomberg terminal or from my mother company, Thomson Reuters.
“Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Weil arrived at a similar conclusion in early April as the ‘scandal’ was just revealing itself, describing the 75-word note Height Securities analyst Justin Simon sent to his company’s clients as an’“amazing scoop.’
“‘Maybe someone told Simon something without permission, but that wouldn’t be the analyst’s problem,’ wrote Weil. ‘Journalists get stories all the time by sweet-talking people into blabbing things they shouldn’t. There’s nothing wrong with that.’
“There’s been nothing wrong with it for five or six centuries, as Chris Roush’s 2006 history of business journalism, Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and Its Role in Society, informs us. The earliest business journalism from the 15th and 16th centuries pushed both financial data and political intelligence to readers, Roush writes. Acting quickly on government news has always been lucrative, he points out in an interview, citing a favorite historical example: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s January 1790 decision to reorganize the young country’s debt and ‘refund the existing debt at face value,’ as he words it in his book. Informed investors boarded ships bound for Southern states to beat the news trickling down by land. Once they arrived in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, they reaped windfall profits by purchasing debt at 10 percent to 20 percent of face value from the unsuspecting. Roush shrugs his shoulders at the Height Securities story. ‘This is nothing new, this is using information to make money in the market,’ he told me.”
Read more here.
How the 2008 crisis impacted financial journalism
by Chris Roush
Last week, ProPublica and NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute hosted a discussion on the 2008 financial crisis and how, if at all, it impacted our panel of top Wall Street journalists – both their outlook and their work.
The discussion included Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica; Chrystia Freeland, Reuters; James B. Stewart, New York Times; and Megan McArdle, Newsweek/Daily Beast. It was moderated by Felix Salmon of Reuters.
Bloomberg TV’s Regan has a lot of projects going on
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg TV anchor Trish Regan is featured on the cover of New York Resident magazine and is interviewed by Christopher A. Pape.
Here is an excerpt:
R: What new things are you working on?
TR: I’ve got a lot of projects going on. In addition to anchoring “Street Smart” from 3-5pm during the close of trading every day, I also report for our documentary unit at Bloomberg. Right now, I’m finishing a one hour special on the casino industry that looks at the challenges and opportunities the gaming business now faces. I’m also working on a documentary about the marijuana industry becoming a more acceptable, legitimate business. And, by the time this magazine hits newsstands, I’ll have finished shooting an hour special called, “The Real Brazil.” (I’m actually heading to Brazil in a few days for a week of reporting there. I think Brazil is fascinating – it’s effectively the China of the Western Hemisphere – and with the right economic policy could really become a major economy.)
I’ve got lots of ideas and plenty more I want to do. The world of business is fascinating. The personalities behind business are fascinating. And one of the best parts of being at Bloomberg is that I’m surrounded with incredibly talented people that believe in telling great stories. We’re just getting started.
Read more here.
Bloomberg Radio celebrates Boston launch
by Chris Roush
Daniel B. Kline of the Boston Globe writes Wednesday about the launch of Bloomberg Radio in the Boston market.
Kline writes, “Bloomberg has 26 journalists in its Boston bureau led by Tom Moroney, a veteran Boston journalist who worked at The Boston Globe as well as for several other papers in Massachusetts. The bureau existed before the radio station was launched, and it feeds the company’s content delivery channels including its signature terminal, Bloomberg.com, and Bloomberg’s cable television channel.
“‘We have two staff members who have won Pulitzer prizes,’ said Moroney. ‘We have a very seasoned team and having a local radio presence gives us another venue to use that team in.’
“As part of the launch, Bloomberg Radio has formed a strategic partnership with Boston-area Bentley University, in which Bentley will provide primary access to its leading faculty and staff, adding insight and perspective to listeners. Bloomberg Radio and Bentley will also co-produce content, drawing on Bentley’s academic resources, and Bloomberg Radio will present programming incorporating students, including the award-winning Fed Challenge team and student-run Bentley Investment Group.
“Bloomberg’s Boston radio station is its first local expansion beyond its home in New York and Moroney said it will serve as the template for future growth.
“‘I lived up here for years and to come back and be on the air here is amazing,’ said Tom Keene, host of Bloomberg Surveillance, the station’s morning drive program. ‘Just last night I went to the Innovation District and it was amazing. I remember when it was just one big parking lot.’”
Read more here.
SmartMoney consumer reporter headed to CNBC
by Chris Roush
Kelli B. Grant, the senior consumer reporter at SmartMoney.com, is leaving the online personal finance magazine for a job at CNBC on its website, a CNBC executive confirmed to Talking Biz News.
She will be on the enterprise team run by Jeff Nash, who joined CNBC.com last month from SmartMoney as well. Nash had been editor of SmartMoney.com.
Grant has been at SmartMoney since June 2005. She teaches consumers how to save money and spend it wisely through the popular Deal of the Day column three times a week. Her columns were promoted in SmartMoney magazine before the print publication was killed last year, and have been reprinted in the Wall Street Journal, AOL, MSN, Yahoo! and Diversion magazine.
She has also served as a SmartMoney.com source for television and radio interview, and also report savings tips in SmartMoney TV’s weekly Three Tips videos.
Before that, she was a reporter and an assistant to Marshall Loeb at Marketwatch.com.
Grant is a 2004 graduate of Ithaca.
Shactman leaves CNBC for MSNBC
by Chris Roush
Brian A. Shactman, who joined CNBC in June 2007 as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor for business day programming, is leaving the network to host MSNBC’s “Way Too Early.”
He’ll begin on Monday, May 13 and will also contribute to “Morning Joe.”
He covered a range of stories for the network, including the BP Oil Spill, the fall of Bear Stearns, the final Space Shuttle launch and Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy. In 2012, Shactman was nominated for an Emmy Award for his coverage of the oil boom in North Dakota.
Previously, Shactman hosted “CNBC Sports Biz: Game On” on the NBC Sports Network and “Worldwide Exchange” on CNBC.
In addition to his business-day responsibilities, Shactman has been the sole correspondent on documentaries for the network including “Cigarette Wars,” “America’s Oil Rush” and “Dangerous Trade: Exotic Animals.”
Prior to CNBC, Shactman worked at the NBC owned-and-operated station in Connecticut, as well as ESPN. Shactman won the Associated Press award for a documentary on Hall of Fame basketball coach Geno Auriemma in 2003. He also received three regional Emmy nominations in 2002 for his sports anchoring and reporting.
