Tag Archives: Commentary
A wet kiss from the NYT biz section
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The NYTpicker site writes Sunday that the profile of General Electric Co. and CEO Jeff Immelt in the Sunday business section of the New York Times is a puff piece.
NYTpicker writes, “But this week — to borrow the language of the virtual GE press release it published as a cover story today — it’s ‘back to basics’ for a NYT section more notable for its flackery than its scoops. Too often, its columns promote products, its interviews push personalities, and its cover stories depend more on exclusive access than investigative muscle.
“That’s the story behind this week’s wet kiss. In 3,690 words, longtime NYT business reporter Steve Lohr manages to reward one of America’s most battered corporations, GE, with the chance to resurrect itself — simply, it seems, as payback for the chance to interview Jeffrey Immelt, its struggling CEO.
“As anyone who follows the business world knows, GE took a major beating in the 2008 economic meltdown, having pinned its future on its GE Capital financial services unit. That resource fell apart in 2008, as the credit crisis left GE reeling.”
Read more here.
Stop the presses. The beige book is out
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Dan Barkin, a senior editor at The (Raleigh) News & Observer and the paper’s former business editor, riffs on the release of the beige book on Wednesday and other economic indicators.
Barkin writes, “I was just looking at the CNBC app on my Blackberry (this tells you everything you need to know about me), and I noticed an alert that said the Beige Book for December had just come out.
“The Beige Book is produced by the Federal Reserve eight times a year, and is an anecdotal assessment of how the economy is doing in each of the Fed’s districts. We are in the Richmond district, along with a bunch of other southern and border states.
“The Beige Book is kind of what it would be like if you were with a bunch of Fed officials at a bar after work, and they were talking about what they’d heard from around the country: I talked to a car dealer in Kansas City, and he said business was picking up. This guy who runs a small real estate business in Atlanta says he’s had an uptick in showings. This guy who operates a rug factory in Alabama says orders are down.
“It’s about as close to a real-time look at the economy as you can get, and it’s better, in my view, than a lot of economic statistics that are often a little old and not always reliable. Although you’ll get an argument on that.”
Read more here.
A biz editor and his PR loot
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Jon Chesto, the business editor of the Quincy Patriot-Ledger, writes about all of the stuff that public relations firms have sent him in a bid to gain coverage.
Chesto writes, “The latest package to arrive here was even hand-delivered, courtesy of New England Development. The new owner of the Westgate Mall is helpfully reminding us that it’s Christmastime – by giving us a bright-red stocking, a tree ornament and a coffee mug with some sort of gleeful gingerbread pattern.
“Looks like another one for the Graft Table.
“That’s my affectionate nickname for the desk in the business department where I try to give away all the PR-related loot that arrives in the mail. After all, I personally can’t keep any of the stuff. That would be a violation of everything we learned in those ethics classes in journalism school (exceptions are made, of course, for any big boxes from The Boston Beer Company).
“Sometimes, I end up with an item or two that no one else wants. Journalists have a low bar when it comes to freebies, but they do have standards. The arrival of the Westgate Mall care package prompted me to take a quick inventory of the leftovers in my mailbag.”
Read more here.
Why tech journalists should be entrepreneurs
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Lukas Zinnagl, editor of TechCrunch EU, gives five reasons why tech reporters need to be entrepreneurs as well.
Zinnagl writes, “Michael Arrington, Om Malik and others are masters of research and inherently the reason why they’ve become successful. Researching a market is 
crucial to any Tech entrepreneur thinking of starting a company, however there is an array of other elements why I think Tech journalists should not only write about startups, but start them. Starting a company, raising money for your endeavor or pitching a VC always requires knowledge in certain topics. I argue that these topics are often fulfilled by Tech Journos more than by others.
“1. Market
“When writing (and more importantly doing research) about a certain Startup a Journalist inevitably has to look at the market. Not only for similar players and competitors, but also its size and current status. There are market trends and those ought be understood for an article of quality.
“2. Competition
“Whenever you want to start a company or think about writing one, one has to deeply look at your most feared or more beloved players in your segment. Knowing your competitors is essential from the early days on. Caring about your competition and watching them closely how they fail or succeed is what let’s you do better. Writing about Startups requires knoweledge of their enemies and friends.”
Read more here.
Bad Black Friday coverage
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TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs doesn’t like the bulk of Black Friday coverage he’s seen.
Pulitzer winning biz columnist to cut back on writing for teaching
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Steven Pearlstein, the business columnist at the Washington Post who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 in the commentary category, announced at the end of his column in Wednesday’s paper that he’s going to limit his writing for the paper so that he can teach.
Pearlstein writes, “Starting next fall, I’ll be the Clarence J. Robinson professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University, teaching undergraduate courses on the basic principles of economics, economic policy and the media. I’ll also continue to write this column once a week and moderate The Post’s On Leadership Web site.
“I’ve been at The Post nearly 23 years, during which I’ve had great gigs as an editor, reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist. Now, as I head into my 60s, George Mason has offered me the opportunity to teach some of what I’ve learned to its large, energetic and diverse student body. The new schedule won’t start until next summer, which is a good thing, since I have lots of books to read between now and then.”
Read more here.
Pearlstein joined The Post in 1988 as deputy business editor, overseeing the paper’s daily and Sunday coverage. Five years later, he became the newspaper’s chief economic correspondent. He began writing his twice-weekly column for The Post in the spring of 2003 and earned a reputation for his hard-hitting commentary on a wide range of economic and business issues.
He won the Gerald Loeb Award for his columns in 2006 and was honored with the Pulitzer for commentary in 2008 for his columns about mounting problems in the financial markets. At the time, it was said, “his insightful columns…explore the nation’s complex economic ills with masterful clarity.”
The FT has become hostile to bloggers
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Reuters blogger Felix Salmon doesn’t like the new warning that appears when someone copies text from a Financial Times article to use on a blog or other online venue.
Salmon writes, “Hilariously, even the FT’s own journalists are falling foul of this idiocy: on Thursday, in his Markets Live conversation, Neil Hume wound up pasting text onto the FT’s website saying that he was infringing the FT’s copyright. ;Sorry,’ he then added. ‘Damn disclaimer.’
“It’s pretty clear that the FT doesn’t want people like me linking to them. Their Money Supply blog, for instance, after disappearing behind the paywall in June, linked to me this morning. But I don’t know what they said, because even when I paste the headline (‘Would €90bn be enough for Ireland?’) into Google and click on the Google link — something which works with most FT stories — I still run into that paywall.
“Meanwhile, the FT’s terms and conditions page gives me very strict instructions on exactly what I must — yes, they use the word ‘must’ — do if I want to link to their stories.”
Read more here.
Who "owns" business news?
by Chris Roush
Washington & Lee journalism ethics professor Edward Wasserman writes in the Miami Herald about the tricky question of who owns news after it’s been reported, using the recent court case between Briefing.com and Dow Jones & Co., the parent of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, as his news peg.
Wasserman writes, “But in the Internet age, news originators have a big problem. Within minutes of its first appearance even an exclusive news story would appear on dozens of sites that did nothing to produce it. Thanks to the speed and efficiency of search engines, the vast majority of readers will catch up with the story somewhere else, and the originating news organization won’t profit from its enterprise through higher audience numbers on its own site.
“That’s why it’s important that earlier this month a financial news website called Briefing.com paid an undisclosed sum to settle a suit brought by Dow Jones & Co., the worldwide business news powerhouse. Dow Jones sued in April to stop the Chicago-based website from helping itself to breaking news off the Dow newswire. During two weeks in February, Briefing.com allegedly copied 72 headlines and parts of 107 articles within minutes of their appearance on the Dow wire, according to a Reuters report.
“Now, what’s most notable about this case is that Dow Jones didn’t just allege copyright infringement. Copyright prohibits stealing somebody else’s words. It protects expression, not ideas. If Dow broke a story, copyright alone wouldn’t stop another website from rewriting that story and posting it.
“But Dow sued under another principle as well, the notion of ‘hot news.’ This is a somewhat vague doctrine that dates from a 1918 Supreme Court decision upholding a news service’s right to claim breaking news as ‘quasi property,’ according to an analysis in the University of Minnesota’s Silha Bulletin. That means the authors who broke the news could claim an exclusive right to the information itself, at least for a time.”
Read more here.
The Financial Follies: It's Raining Yen
by Chris Roush
The New York Financial Writers Association hosts the “Financial Follies” dinner every year for business journalists and sources to mingle. Marshall Heyman of The Wall Street Journal has some highlights of Friday’s festivities.
Heyman writes, “Because it’s a staged show, the Financial Follies has what it calls a book and lyrics committee. Some of the people on the committee this year were Josh Friedlander, who’s the President Emeritus of NYFWA and the online editor of AR: Absolute Return + Alpha; Peter Coy, the economics editor for BusinessWeek; and Imogen Rose-Smith, a reporter for Institutional Investor.
“This year’s cast was made of an equally eclectic crowd, including reporters from Market News International and Reuters, as well as professional actors like Tim Kubart, who appeared as a character named Spencer in the Teen.com Web series ‘Haute & Bothered.’ Accompaniment is provided by Broadway musicians.
“The program featured a cautionary warning containing its own brand of fiscal ha-ha: ‘This show’s humor is an unregulated derivative of past events. Pursue an investment at your own risk. Past hilarity is no guarantee of future humor.’
“Featured prominently: an illustration of President Obama, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner among dolphins and fish in the oil spill, and included Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein dressed like Lady Gaga.”
Read more here.
Baltimore biz columnist threatened by company
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Baltimore Sun business columnist Jay Hancock writes Tuesday about how he called the vice president of global marketing at Abbott Laboratories after e-mails the executive sent with a threat to Hancock were subpoenaed by the Senate Finance Committee and published Monday in a report.
Hancock writes, “Pacitti didn’t return my phone calls, but an Abbott flack got in touch on Monday.
“‘We sincerely apologize if this caused you any concern or distress,’ the company spokesman said. Pacitti’s comment, he said, ‘wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.’
“Yeah, that’s what King Henry II said after they whacked Thomas Becket.”
Read more here.