Tag Archives: Personal finance coverage
Reuters hires new personal finance reporter from Smart Money
by Chris Roush
Reuters personal finance editor Lauren Young sent out the following staff announcement on Monday afternoon:
Please join me in welcoming Jilian Mincer to the Reuters Money team.
Jilian, who started on September 12, will help us roll out expanded fund and investing coverage for consumers and financial advisers on Reuters.com. Reporting to me, she will work closely with our colleagues at Lipper, along with the editorial folks who cover investment management and wealth management.
Previously, Jilian was a senior investing reporter at SmartMoney.com, where she covered a range of investing and retirement issues and edited the tax blog. Before that, she was a personal finance columnist for Dow Jones Newswires and wrote a healthcare column for the Sunday Journal.
Despite degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern, she remains loyal to KU basketball after working 16 years at the Kansas City Star as a reporter, reporter and columnist.
Jilian is temporarily sitting a few rows away from the Summits Room on 19, not far from Richard Baum and Anthony De Rosa. Stop by and say hello.
Bloomberg.com launches personal finance section
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg.com has added a personal finance section to its website, one of the first sections — after Bloomberg View — to launch under the redesigned site.
Bloomberg Personal Finance will cover areas such as investing, retirement planning, portfolio strategies, real estate and stories that dig into the “real cost” of things like owning a dog or flying from Los Angeles to New York.
Suzanne Woolley, the personal finance editor for Bloomberg.com, writes, “Bloomberg is extending its expertise in the world of professional finance to personal investing. Today, we are launching a new ‘Personal Finance‘ section on Bloomberg.com. Our consumer-friendly site will feature original stories, slideshows, in-depth multimedia special reports, video, and data visualizations. A dedicated staff will explore the angles individual investors need to know about, and connect the financial dots so that they can make smarter, faster, and more informed decisions about managing their money. We’ll address issues that impact retirement, investing, real estate and more.
“This move furthers Bloomberg.com’s transition to a more editorially driven site, where dedicated web teams deliver content tailored for business executives. The original stories in this part of the site will feature a lot of practical knowledge and unique insights. In food terms, we won’t just offer crudités readers could get anywhere. We want to offer them a well-crafted amuse-bouche or two every day—along with a few meals they won’t forget.”
Read more here.
Personal Journal looking for reporter
by Chris Roush
Emily Nelson, the editor of the Personal Journal section of The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following announcement to the staff on Wednesday:
Personal Journal is looking for a reporter. This feature-writing position could cover any or all of the following topics including shopping, gadgets, home life and design, fashion, and food. We can tailor the beat for the candidate.
The most important qualities are the ability to generate story ideas and creatively execute them. The reporter would be expected to write weekly, primarily for the Wednesday and Thursday Personal Journal sections.
The job requires thinking about story-telling with graphics and photos. Ideal candidates will have a track record as a beat reporter, as a big part of PJ coverage is decoding the marketing trends and messages hitting consumers. As part of a team of reporters and editors on Personal Journal, the reporter will help shape the section’s coverage, in print and online.
Please let Leslie Yazel or me know if you’re interested.
Dow Jones names news editor for wealth management coverage
by Chris Roush
Kevin Noblet, managing editor for wealth management coverage at Dow Jones Newswires, made the following staff announcement on Monday morning:
I’m pleased to announce that Temma Ehrenfeld will become news editor for wealth management at Dow Jones Newswires.
Temma, who will start on Sept. 6, brings the knowledge and experience to help guide our in-depth coverage of news, trends and best practices in financial advising. She comes to Dow Jones from Financial Planning where, as senior editor, she edited and wrote for the monthly magazine and posted items daily on its website. Previously, she was an assistant editor at Newsweek, writing and reporting business and other stories and working closely with prominent columnists, including personal finance expert Jane Bryant Quinn, for 16 years. Before that, she was a reporter for Fortune for five years. She is a graduate of Yale.
Our wealth management coverage, including our columns and video, has become a distinguishing feature of DJN. Temma’s talents will help us provide the depth and detail our subscribers are looking for and have come to expect from us.
Please join me in welcoming her to the team.
Tulsa biz section adds column from Kiplinger
by Chris Roush
John Stancavage, the business editor of the Tulsa World, writes Sunday about changes to its personal finance coverage.
Stancavage writes, “Beginning this week, the Tulsa World Business section is adding Money Power, a series of personal finance columns from Kiplinger.
“The first Money Power report appears on E-3. It will occupy the space that was anchored for many years by Kathy Kristof, who is retiring from writing her newspaper column.
“I’ve been reading sample Money Power columns for about a month now, and I think you’re going to like the new content.
“For one thing, Money Power is written by a diverse group of expert Kiplinger financial reporters. This group stays so busy we’ll often run two separate columns Sunday, along with another column Saturday and a tulsaworld.com-only bonus column starting July 25.
“This Sunday’s kickoff Money Power feature is written by Kimberly Lankford, a name you’ll see frequently going forward. In addition to writing about family finances, she also will contribute the “Ask Kim” column where she will answer your questions.”
Read more here.
Reuters hires deputy personal finance editor
by Chris Roush
Thomson Reuters announced Wednesday the appointment of Beth Pinsker Gladstone to deputy personal finance editor, reporting to Lauren Young, personal finance editor.
In her new role, Gladstone will help coordinate wealth, personal finance and money-related coverage for Reuters.com and other Thomson Reuters platforms.
“Consumers need clear, timely and actionable financial advice,” says Jim Impoco, executive editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. “And through the various Thomson Reuters brands, including Lipper, FindLaw and Tax & Accounting, we are uniquely positioned to give it to them. I am excited to have Beth join the team and work with us to provide our consumers with world-class financial advice.”
Previously, Gladstone was editor of WalletPop.com, the personal finance site owned by AOL where she took the site from its public launch to a peak of 10 million unique visitors per month.
Prior to this role, she held positions at iVillage, Inside.com and the Dallas Morning News. Additionally, Gladstone is a freelance writer and her stories on business news and entertainment have appeared in publications including Wired, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Kiplinger’s customer database is hacked
by Chris Roush
Diane Bartz of Reuters reports that a hacking of Kiplinger’s database occurred last month.
She writes that hackers “broke into its database and accessed information about 142,000 customers, including possibly 43,000 encrypted credit card numbers.
“The hack was discovered on June 25, and affected online subscribers as well as those who have print subscriptions, the company said in a statement.
“‘We believe that about 43,000 encrypted credit cards that were in our database may have been accessed,’ said Doug Harbrecht, director of new media.
“Kiplinger has notified customers and the FBI but does not know who was behind the hack, said Harbrecht.”
Read more here.
The fight against bafflegab
by Chris Roush
Pamela Yellen of The Huffington Post writes about Sylvia Porter, one of the pioneers of personal finance journalism who wrote a syndicated column for decades.
Yellen writes, “At first, as a 22-year-old financial news freelancer for the New York Evening Post in 1935, Porter was required to use the byline ‘S.F. Porter’ to mask the fact that she was a woman. But Porter’s crusading reporting, fighting for the common person and exposing financial graft, earned her a growing and loyal audience. Still ‘bearded’ as ‘S.F. Porter’ in 1938, she was made the newspaper’s financial editor and began writing a daily column.
“It took until July 1942 for the Post to finally realize that Porter’s gender might actually be an asset. It was then that the paper allowed her to write as ‘Sylvia F. Porter’ and began running her photo. Five years later, her articles became nationally syndicated and her influence and readership multiplied many times over.
“Porter, who died of emphysema just shy of her 78th birthday, spent more than a half-century advocating for financial literacy and was a firm believer that individuals can — and should — take control of their money, savings and investments. ‘I like to think I’ve contributed in some way to the increasing willingness of the American public to take on the responsibilities of the economy,’ she once said in reflecting on her accomplishments.
“Among Porter’s enduring philosophies is that education is one of the best possible personal investments; that individuals should dismiss theoretical comparisons to ‘average’ investors, since there is no such thing; and that money is more than coins and bills — it ‘can be translated into the beauty of living, a support in misfortune, an education, or future security.’”
Read more here. Porter is the only business journalist ever to appear on the cover of a mainstream magazine.
WSJ wins three Loebs; Bloomberg and NYTimes win two
by Chris Roush
The first two Loeb Awards — and three of the first four — announced Tuesday night went to Dow Jones & Co. news operations.
Julia Angwin, Emily Steel, Scott Thurm, Christina Tsuei, Paul Antonson, Jill Kirschenbaum and Jovi Juan of The Wall Street Journal received the Loeb Award for “What They Know” in the online enterprise category.
Kara Swisher for “Liveblogging Yahoo Earnings Calls in 2010 (They’re Funny!)” at All Things Digital won in the blogging category.
The Loebs, considered the most prestigious award in business journalism, are being presented Tuesday night at a dinner in New York. A tribute to former CNBC anchor Mark Haines, who died suddenly earlier this year, was shown during the ceremony.
Here are the rest of the winners, given more or less in chronological order of when they were announced during the night:
Sebastian Mallaby for “More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite” published by The Penguin Press won in the business book category.
In the breaking news category, Tom Lauricella, Peter A. McKay, Scott Patterson, Jenny Strasburg, Robin Sidel, Carolyn Cui and Mary Pilon of The Journal won for “Flash Crash.”
In the news service category, the winner is David Evans for “Profiting From Fallen Soldiers” in Bloomberg News. Bloomberg’s Daniel Golden, John Hechinger and John Lauerman also won in the beat reporting category for “Education Inc.”
In the medium and small newspaper category, there are two winners — Chris Serres and Glenn Howatt of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for “Hounded — Debtors and the New Breed of Collectors” and Michael J. Berens of the Seattle Times for “Seniors for Sale.”
In the magazine category, the winners are Amanda Bennett and Charles R. Babcock in Bloomberg Businessweek for “End-of-Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder Was It Worth It,” a moving piece about the death of Bennett’s husband.
Ron Lieber of the New York Times won in the personal finance category for “Student Debt.” Paul Krugman, also from the Times, won in the commentary category for various columns.
CNBC‘s Mitch Weitzner, Scott Cohn, Jeff Pohlman, Emily Bodenberg and Steven Banton won in the television enterprise category for “Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation.”
In the explanatory category, the winners are David Nicklaus and Tim Logan for “Edifice Complex” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
And the final winner of the evening, in the large newspaper category, is Ben Casselman, Russell Gold, Douglas A. Blackmon, Vanessa O’Connell, Alexandra Berzon and Ana Campoy for “Deep Trouble” in The Journal.
Personal finance site Bankrate.com goes public, shares rise
by Chris Roush
Bankrate.com, a personal finance website that has three dozen business journalists working for it, went public on Friday, but its shares fell in initial trading.
Its shares were trading at $14.74 as of 1:30 p.m. EST, down from its offering price of $15. UPDATE: Bankrate, which began as a newsletter in 1976, saw its shares close Friday at $15.34, up more than 2 percent from the offering price.
Its S-1 filing with the SEC states, “We also develop and provide web services to over 75 co-branded websites with online partners, including some of the most trusted and frequently visited personal finance sites on the Internet such as Yahoo!, AOL, CNBC and Bloomberg. In addition, we license editorial content to over 100 newspapers on a daily basis including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.”
The filing also states, “Our editorial staff of 33 editors and reporters, 90 freelancers and 15 expert columnists delivers ‘best in class’ content and provides news and advice through over 150 new articles per week on top of over 50,000 stories in our database.”
Lynn Cowan and Chris Deiterich of Dow Jones Newswires write, “Bankrate makes money primarily through display advertising, performance-based advertising and lead generation. Its revenue and operating income have been on the rise since Apax took it private, but interest expense on a debt load that totals nearly $300 million has weighed heavily on its bottom line. In the first quarter, revenue nearly tripled to $99.1 million, and the company reported operating income of $18.6 million compared to $608,000 in the same period a year earlier. It posted net income of $5.1 million compared to a net loss of $5.2 million in the first quarter of 2010.
“Visitor traffic to Bankrate’s websites tends to increase with interest rate movements, and the level of traffic can be dependent on interest rate levels as well as mortgage financing and refinancing activity. The company warned that any slowdown in mortgage production volumes could have an adverse effect on its business.
“Bankrate is hoping for a strengthening U.S. economic recovery, a prospect fraught with increased uncertainty in recent weeks. In its prospectus, the company said that demand for financial services is generally correlated to the growth of the economy. Financial institutions’ online and traditional marketing spending is expected to increase if things improve. For example, in 2010, major credit card companies increased advertising and lead generation spending after significantly cutting their budgets in 2008 and 2009.
“It is also in a highly competitive market, up against other websites, search engines and offline sources such as banks and insurers.”
Read more here.
