Tag Archives: AP
WSJ, AP both should have won Pulitzer for oil spill coverage
by
Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post writes that either the Wall Street Journal or the Associated Press should have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for their coverage of the Deepwater Horizon/BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Achenbach writes, “I should note that the Journal didn’t go unacknowledged: Its oil spill coverage was a finalist in the National News category. The winner in that category was Pro Publica, for coverage of Wall Street shenanigans (by the way, over on the arts and letters side of things, when will the P’s give Michael Lewis the prize he’s earned more than once?). But unless the Journal somehow botched its entry and forgot to include its best work, I find it hard to believe that the board could have looked at the Journal’s package of coverage and concluded that it wasn’t worthy of a Pulitzer in some category.
“I suspect the real problem is that the breaking news category stipulates that the work be ‘local.’ Why make that stiipulation? There’s already a separate category for Local News.
“The Journal was very good in its coverage early and often, with superior enterprise pieces that were the first to lay out precisely what went wrong on the terrible night of April 20, 2010, as shown in company documents and emails. That work, by Ben Casselman, Russell Gold and other WSJ staffers, set the standard for every reconstruction story that followed.
“And let’s not forget the AP: It was on top of the story from the get-go and never let up. Along the way, the AP had a terrific enterprise piece on the abandoned wells that continue to pose a spill hazard. For its oil spill coverage, the AP won a George Polk Award.”
Read more here.
Investigative reporting tips for business journalists
by
By Alex Barinka
Matt Apuzzo epitomized how I always imagine an investigative reporter. He spoke 1,000 mph though I’m sure his brain was working faster, he was animated and spoke with passionately waving arms, and he was so excited when he talked about the benefits of using documents.
Geeze, sounds a little bit like someone else I know (yep, that would be me).
Apuzzo, an AP reporter and member of the Washington investigative team, gave us some tips and tricks and more than a few laughs, too, in the Society of American Business Editors and Writers session on investigative reporting from conception to execution.
“We are in the answering questions business.” You are going to get lost in the weeds without a question in mind. Instead of writing about how the government is fixing bridges, you should address the question of whether the government is fixing the bridges that are in the worst shape.
- “You don’t operate heavy machinery without reading the manual.” If you are covering a company, a municipality, an industry, don’t jump into it without knowing anything about it. You wouldn’t start pulling the gears and levers of a crane without knowing what they do first.
- “Write the manual yourself.” Write the manual for your readers, and get input from those who know the machine intimately. A list of living sources: company execs, lawyers (inside and outside of the company), former execs and lawyers, analysts, politicians, economic developers, competitors, whistleblowers, suppliers, employees, retirees, associations, contractors, unions, shippers, regulators, lobbyists, accountants and major customers (phew!).
- “All the best conversations start in a bar.” Have candid conversations with sources (unless, of course, it is supposed to be confrontational). Apuzzo says his daily ideal would be breakfast with a source, lunch with a source, coffee with a source, drinks with a source, ect.
- “Don’t use analysts for their analysis. If you’re covering this beat, you already know all of this stuff.” Apuzzo read quotes from analysts published recently, and they all state the obvious. Use analysts for their in depth knowledge of the company, its accounting, fishy goings on or their relationships with employees.
- “Even the mob writes stuff down.” There are more documents out there than we realize. The two questions Apuzzo always asks after an interview is, “Who else should I be talking to, and where is that written down?”
- “Spurned spouses and people who are owed money do not hold back.” Law records, including bankruptcy and divorce records, are not used as often as they should be.
- “I’ll have what he’s having! Give me those!” File Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the FOIA request logs. See what other journalists, whistleblowers and companies want to see, and then request for them yourself.
- “Know an industry and find where it intersects with the government because that is where stuff gets written down.” File FOIA requests for agencies related to business or industries. File for information on things that are taxed because it is recorded. File for contact information listed on the documents.
- “Every 3 months I would drop a FOIA request for all the email and all the calendars.” File for policymakers calendars and phone records to see who they talk to (or which reports they are calling!).
- “Now you’ve got your CEO’s phone number because his Schnauzer is important to him.” If your area has a dog licensing database, file for that, too! Many seemingly obscure documents may have contact information on an elusive source.
Alex Barinka is a business journalism student at UNC-Chapel Hill who will intern this summer at Bloomberg News. Read the rest of her coverage here.
Shinkle promoted to AP's deputy biz editor
by Chris Roush
Kevin Shinkle, an assistant business editor who joined The Associated Press at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and has directed AP’s coverage of the financial markets since then, has been promoted to deputy business editor.
The appointment was announced Thursday by business editor Hal Ritter.
An AP story states, “In his new role, Shinkle will shape the daily business report and work with the department’s assistant business editors to deliver even more exclusives and ambitious enterprise stories.
“‘Kevin Shinkle has been a superb editor and a dynamic leader during his initial years in Business News,’ Ritter said. ‘As deputy, he will be able to apply his skills to the operation and management of the entire department.’
“Before joining the AP in November 2008, Shinkle, 45, was business editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark. He joined the newspaper in 2000 as deputy business editor. Before that, he was a reporter for Bloomberg News for seven years and The Tampa Tribune for three years. He also worked for The Chapel Hill Newspaper in North Carolina.
“While at The Star-Ledger, the business section was honored five times by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in its Best in Business contest.”
Read more here. DISCLOSURE: I worked with Shinkle at the Tampa paper and at Bloomberg News.
Shinkle promoted to AP’s deputy biz editor
by
Kevin Shinkle, an assistant business editor who joined The Associated Press at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and has directed AP’s coverage of the financial markets since then, has been promoted to deputy business editor.
The appointment was announced Thursday by business editor Hal Ritter.
An AP story states, “In his new role, Shinkle will shape the daily business report and work with the department’s assistant business editors to deliver even more exclusives and ambitious enterprise stories.
“‘Kevin Shinkle has been a superb editor and a dynamic leader during his initial years in Business News,’ Ritter said. ‘As deputy, he will be able to apply his skills to the operation and management of the entire department.’
“Before joining the AP in November 2008, Shinkle, 45, was business editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark. He joined the newspaper in 2000 as deputy business editor. Before that, he was a reporter for Bloomberg News for seven years and The Tampa Tribune for three years. He also worked for The Chapel Hill Newspaper in North Carolina.
“While at The Star-Ledger, the business section was honored five times by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in its Best in Business contest.”
Read more here. DISCLOSURE: I worked with Shinkle at the Tampa paper and at Bloomberg News.
Why Bloomberg and AP want your medical records
by
Jim Edwards of BNET.com writes about how some big media companies have filed briefs in a U.S. Supreme Court case considering whether pharmaceutical companies have the right to obtain prescription drug data.
The briefs have been filed by Associated Press, Bloomberg News, McGraw-Hill, Hearst Corp., and the investigative non-profit group ProPublica (among others) in one brief; and trade publishing group American Business Media and Reed Elsevier in another.
Edwards writes, “Now imagine that data in the hands of the media. I’m an infamous First Amendment absolutist — I spent four years litigating to force a New York court to open documents describing corruption on Madison Avenue — but even I am not sure that the press should be able to figure out what your local senator or pop star most recently went to the doctor for.
“The media firms know this, too. The AP/Bloomberg/Propublica brief devotes several pages to the awesomeness of their own database-sifting skills. They claim there is a ‘public interest’ in monitoring prescription drug databases in order to detect adverse events from bad drugs. This is true — but the FDA already maintains the gold standard database for that information, and it’s already available to the public.
“Even if there were some public interest advantage to giving the media access to Rx information, it would come coupled with the pharmaceutical industry’s continued access to the same. I can assure you that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Merck et al.’s interest in these databases will be far more enduring, better resourced, more granular and more thorough than Bloomberg’s will ever be.”
Read more here.
AP names new financial markets editor
by
Associated Press business editor Hal Ritter made the following staff announcement on Wednesday:
In four weeks, Jennifer Merritt will join us as financial markets team leader, filling a job that has been vacant since Joyce Rosenberg became Money & Markets editor. Jennifer has spent the past 3 1/2 years at Dow Jones, most recently as deputy personal finance editor of WSJ.com/SmartMoney.com. Before that, she was in charge of careers, workplace and management education coverage for The Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com.
Before Dow Jones, Jennifer was a special projects editor at Money magazine and business editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. She started her career at Business Week, where she produced the widely read and influential annual ranking of business schools.
Jennifer graduated from Northwestern University in 1998 with a bachelor of science degree in journalism. While at Northwestern, she was on a team of student journalists whose investigative work resulted in the pardon of a man on death row who had been beaten by police until he confessed to a murder he did not commit. This month, another defendant in the case, who was serving a life sentence, was freed.
While business editor in Jacksonville in 2006, Jennifer’s business section won a SABEW Best in Business Certificate of Merit. In 2003, she received Northwestern’s first Young Alumni Emerging Leader Award.
AP launches global economic tracker
by
The Associated Press announced Monday that it has launched the AP Global Economy Tracker, the new analytical tool that’s a quarterly analysis of world economic and financial trends that draws on data from 22 countries that account for more than 80 percent of global economic output.
AP economics writer Paul Wiseman is the lead business reporter on this project. His first two stories will be published in all formats, starting Wednesday and Thursday. The inaugural AP Global Economy Tracker stories will explain the challenges the world faces as old economic patterns fade and new ones emerge.
“Our new Global Economy Tracker will give the AP’s global audience easy access to data from the world’s leading economies and inform readers first about trends emerging worldwide,” AP business editor Hal Ritter said.
The AP is focusing on economic indicators, such as GDP, employment and inflation, and on financial indicators, such as stock markets, interest rates and currencies.
The AP Business News staff will report the latest global economic trends and explain their impact on policymakers, investors and other readers. Data from the AP Global Economy Tracker will be presented in an interactive map.
Charlotte Observer banking reporter to become AP retail reporter
by
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Charlotte Observer business editor Patrick Scott sent out the following message to the staff on Tuesday afternoon:
I’m sorry to say that Christina Rexrode is leaving the Observer, but that we are excited for her and her new adventure – covering retail for the Associated Press out of New York City.
Christina’s powerful intellect, passion for public service journalism and determination to provide clear and compelling stories have served us and our readers well for nearly three years.
Christina joined the banking team at the start of 2008 with the intent to ease into the beat through consumer coverage. That lasted two months. Soon, she and Rick Rothacker and others were plunged into a financial crisis that spawned one of the biggest stories in Charlotte’s history, multiple breaking-news packages and scores of front page enterprise pieces. Christina weighed in on everything from shareholders’ fight to block the sale of Wachovia to Wells Fargo to what fewer banks means for consumers, from perks for Bank of America directors and executives to the fall of CEO Ken Lewis.
Before, during and after the meltdown, Christina has churned out exclusives, tackled complex subjects, given voice to the common person and held power to account, all while gaining an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the financial sector and the Charlotte economy. She has always been hungry for the scoop, devoted to accuracy and impressively versatile.
In her most recent work, she brought to light just how deeply dependent the city is on banking and the unspoken tension between bankers and ethics in this city built on faith and finance. She also parachuted into freezing Denver for a quick-turn, fascinating story on what Charlotte can learn about hosting a Democratic National Convention.
We saw the talent in Christina when she worked as a UNC intern on the Business desk in the summer of 2004. She left the St. Pete Times for Charlotte at the end of 2007. She will be leaving Charlotte for New York next month. If you are interested in covering the most important sector in Charlotte’s economy, let me know by March 16.
DISCLOSURE: Rexrode is one of my former students.
AP, Bloomberg win Polks
by
The Associated Press and Bloomberg News won George Polk Awards for their business coverage.
The AP was recognized for its recognize the colossal effort in covering last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The AP was the first news organization to report that the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig had sank following an explosion. Later, AP investigative reporters detailed how equipment failures and deference to the chain of command helped bring about the disaster.
In response to an AP report that revealed that more than 27,000 abandoned oil wells existed in the Gulf and that their condition was unknown to the industry or the government, President Obama ordered oil companies to permanently plug 3,500 of the neglected wells. The AP’s multimedia coverage of the 206 million-gallon oil spill included a compelling video report that showed how it devastated the natural environment and the local economy.
Bloomberg received a Polk for an array of scathing reports that detailed how the for-profit college industry experienced tremendous growth in 10 years by targeting underprivileged students who qualify for federal financial aid. Reporters Dan Golden, John Hechinger and John Lauerman revealed that federal aid awarded to students enrolled at for-profit colleges skyrocketed to $26.5 billion in 2009 from $4.6 billion in 2000.
These education companies marketed heavily to veterans and active-duty service men and women in order to profit from the GI Bill’s school funding. The for-profit colleges also recruited poor and homeless people in order to gain access to federal loan aid, Bloomberg News found. The “Education Inc.” series set the agenda for reforming an industry that had gone largely unnoticed despite educating 12 percent of all college students in the U.S.
Read about all of the winners here.
AP hires new airlines reporter
by
Associated Press business editor Hal Ritter sent out the following announcement to the business news staff on Wednesday:
I’m pleased to announce that Scott Mayerowitz joins Business News today as an airlines reporter in New York. Scott arrives from ABC News where he was travel editor and manager of the travel vertical of ABCNews.com. Scott wrote and produced travel stories primarily but also did stories on autos, retailing and real estate. Frommer’s recently named Scott one of its ’10 Top Travel Twitterers.’
Before joining ABC in 2007, Scott spent seven years as a reporter at The Providence Journal. He covered state government, politics and the gambling industry. His investigative stories in 2003 about lavish pay and perks for school crossing guards in Cranston earned a first-place award from the Rhode Island Press Association.
Scott graduated from Wesleyan University in 2000 with a degree in government. He was editor-in-chief of The Wesleyan Argus and senior class president.
