Biz reporter Stanley Cohen dies at 93
Stanley Cohen, the longtime Washington editor of Advertising Age, died earlier this month at the age of 93. A story on the National Press Club website states, “An elevator ride away from More »
Bloomberg, Citi launch chat service for currency traders
Bloomberg L.P. Thursday unveiled a new chat service for foreign-exchange traders across various banks, developed in collaboration with Citigroup, reports William Launder of The Wall Street Journal. Launder writes, “The product is More »
Bloomberg News hires Boston Globe’s ME
Caleb Solomon will join Bloomberg News as an editor at large for Top News, beginning Monday, June 17, editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler announced Thursday. Solomon joins Bloomberg News from The Boston Globe, where More »
How business news fits in at BuzzFeed
Laura Shin of SmartPlanet.com writes about how business news will fit into BuzzFeed’s operation. Shin writes, “Section editor, Peter Lauria, who was hired from Reuters and spent five years at the New More »
Bloomberg econ reporter to become the Perfect Anecdote
Alex Kowalski, an economics reporter for Bloomberg News in Washington, is leaving the wire service for graduate school in urban planning at Cal-Berkeley. “I will focus on housing, community and economic development, More »
The business of Star Wars
by Liz Hester
Bloomberg Businessweek was out Thursday with an excellent profile of Disney and the acquisition of Lucasfilm and Star Wars. The big takeaway for nerds everywhere is that key members of the original cast are likely to return (maybe):
Here’s creator George Lucas’s slip up:
Mixed message on jobs
by Liz Hester
A well-watched jobs report was better than expected Wednesday, but the anecdotal news for those looking for work wasn’t so good.
First, let’s look at the ADP report from this Wall Street Journal story:
Watching the stock market’s swings
by Liz Hester
Wall Street Journal markets editor extraordinaire (and personal friend) Emma Moody tweeted Tuesday morning: “Please, please just let this death-by-1000-ticks saga be over…” Her link to the story “Stock Futures Track Global Markets Higher” was quickly replaced as the Dow climbed to a record close.
Let’s take a look at some of the coverage of this milestone. Here’s the WSJ closing bell story:
A good example of public service journalism
by Liz Hester
The New York Times had a piece today by Mary Williams Walsh and Louise Story about companies using tax-exempt bonds to finance projects.
The timing was excellent giving the current debate over corporate tax rates. Here are some of the details.
Personal finance coverage is different at The Motley Fool
by Chris Roush
Personal finance coverage at The Motley Fool is different than other media because the organization holds itself accountable for its coverage, said one of the company’s co-founders on Monday evening.
“I think that’s a challenge for other organizations,” said David Gardner, who founded the Alexandria, Va.-based investing and personal finance journalism company with his brother Tom.
Student loans: Only investors seem to want them
by Liz Hester
Nearly everyone I know has student loan debt. Those who don’t are lucky and already paid it off. I can maybe name the people on one hand who have not owed money for the privilege of earning a degree.
It seems that now investors are also more willing than ever to get in on the act. The Wall Street Journal had this story on Monday:
At the intersection of Wall and Broad
by Chris Roush
Debra Borchardt of TheStreet.com worked in the securities business for almost 20 years, spending 15 of those years at Bear Stearns. Borchardt’s work experience covered such diverse areas as equities, fixed income and mutual funds with her last position in the clearing side of the business vetting money managers.
During her Wall Street years, she also worked as an actress appearing regularly in the soap opera “As The World Turns” and working as an extra on “Saturday Night Live.” She left the securities business to get her master’s degree in economic reporting at New York University.
Maya Jackson Randall remembered by her editor
by Rob Wells
Maya Jackson Randall, one of my star reporters at the Dow Jones Newswires/Wall Street Journal Washington bureau, died this week after a long fight with leukemia. Just 33 years old, Maya possessed a remarkable blend of dignity, calm and determination. All of us who knew her feel a great loss this week.
(The photo is Maya Jackson Randall, right, and her husband Jeremy, left, at the 2009 White House Christmas party with the Obamas. Jackson Randall had been diagnosed with leukemia just days before this event.)
Not a great day for tech stocks
by Liz Hester
Wednesday wasn’t the best day for tech darlings Apple Inc. and Groupon Inc. Apple was hammered by investors, and Groupon was hammered by investors.
Here’s the story from Reuters:
A biz journalist on his retirement
by Chris Roush
George Hohmann retired last week as the business editor of the Charleston Daily Mail. He had been with the paper for 15 years and in journalism for 43 years.
Talking Biz News asked Hohmann about his thoughts about retiring. Here is what he said:
Avoiding errors, and what to do when they happen
by KBlessing
The quick pace of social media and the Web have escalated the importance of getting a story right the first time and avoiding errors as a journalist, said Forbes managing editor for business news Dan Bigman in a conference call with Forbes contributors from New York Tuesday.
“Just correcting an error doesn’t necessarily correct the problem,” Bigman said. “If you fix the mistake later, it is already out in the wild and running amuck, with the quick nature of social media.”
It’s all beer and games
by Liz Hester
I’ve been a fan of Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money for a long time. His work is smart and I always enjoy reading his column in the New York Times magazine. And this week’s column is no exception.
It’s all about how Justice Department economists are using game theory to contest Anheuser-Busch InBev’s purchase of the rest of Grupo Modelo. Here are some details:
Time and Meredith: Will they mesh?
by Liz Hester
The New York Times ran an interesting story Monday about the merger of Time Inc. and Meredith Corp. The basic premise of the story is that Meredith is the good, frugal, honest Midwest firm while Time is the greedy, bloated and wasteful New York publishing giant.
Without actually coming out and saying it, the prediction is that the culture clashes will be too great for the combined firm to succeed.
Frankie Flack on bullying business reporters
by Frankie Flack
A few weeks ago I was catching up with a reporter, who I have come to know well, over a few beers.
In the course of our conversation I asked him about his recent interactions with other PR people. This is a question I ask all the reporters I know because the stories are all over the place. Sometimes I learn good tips or pick up interesting intelligence, but most of the time I just like to hear about the antics that go on in our industry. As I have said before, there are many strong, smart PR practitioners in this field, but there are also too many who put a bad name on the field.
The S&P story just keeps getting better
by Liz Hester
The Standard & Poor’s story just keeps on giving. Just when you think it’s about to wind down, there are more twists and turns to be reported.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal story from Jeannette Neumann:
Time’s opus to health care costs
by Liz Hester
Time waded into the U.S. health care debate with a 24,105-word cover piece called “Bitter Pill,” billed in the news release as, “the longest single piece ever published by a single writer in TIME.”
Author (it’s like a book) Steven Brill “spent seven months analyzing bills from hospitals, doctors, drug companies and every other player in the American healthcare ecosystem, following the money to find out exactly how and why we are overspending, where the money is going and how to get it back,” Time’s PR department said.
CNBC purchases rights to “Nightly Business Report,” saves show
by Chris Roush
“Nightly Business Report,” the 34-year-old nightly business news show that airs on public television stations across the country, will start being produced by CNBC, according to a deal announced Thursday afternoon.
The program had lost its key sponsor, Templeton Franklin Investments, at the end of August, and had been underwritten by its current owner. But executives involved with the program stressed that operating model was not sustainable, so CNBC’s involvement will keep the show going.
Be like Bieber: Never ever say never. Ever
by Adam Levy
A recent item on Talking Biz News featured an anonymous former investment banker saying that “markets never move in response to a rating agency change….Never. Ever.” The ex-banker went on to intimate that you could spot a clueless business journalist if he or she ascribes a market move to a rating agency change.
Well, maybe that’s why the banker is an ex-banker – or, hopefully, not on the hiring committee of a financial journalism institution. The banker shouldn’t speak in such stark absolutes.
Sequestration as a business news story
by Chris Roush
John Walcott is team leader for national security and foreign affairs at Bloomberg News. Previously, he was the chief content officer and editor-in-chief of SmartBrief.
He has been McClatchy’s Washington bureau chief, foreign editor and national editor of U.S. News & World Report, national security correspondent at The Wall Street Journal and a correspondent at Newsweek.
Banning telecommuting at Yahoo! and women CEOs
by Liz Hester
When Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer banned working from home at the company, everyone from working moms to Richard Branson piled on saying the decision was a terrible one. The resulting debate and coverage from news organizations around the country makes for interesting reading.
It seems that nearly everyone has an opinion on the matter, so let’s look at a few.