Tag Archives: Thomson Reuters
Writing workshop before SABEW conference
by
Turn Your Business Story Idea Into Reality! Get one-on-one coaching from financial experts and top business editors.
MORNING: One-on-one help researching your story idea and analyzing financial information to give your story depth from experts provided by CFA Institute (Chartered Financial Analysts).
LUNCH: Writing tips from Susan Rasky, professor of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley.
AFTERNOON: One-on-one writing coaching from top Business Editors — including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Reuters – to turn your idea into a story.
RESULT: You could emerge from the day with at least a draft of a story.
WHAT BETTER WAY TO CONVINCE YOUR BOSS TO SEND YOU TO THE SABEW FALL CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK OCT. 30 and OCT. 31.
WHEN: Sunday Oct. 29, 2006 (the day before the SABEW conference opens) The course will begin at 8:30 a.m. and concludes about 5 p.m. Lunch will be provided.
WHERE: Reuters America headquarters, 3 Times Square, New York. The course will be in the fully-equipped Reuters training room on the 11th floor overlooking Times Square.
WHO: Writing coaches include:
· Joanna Ossinger, The Wall Street Journal, Copy Editor
· Keith Leighty, New York Times Copy Editor
· Toni Reinhold, Reuters America Corporate News Copy Desk Editor
· Eddie Evans, Reuters Global Business Features Editor
COST: $50 fee to cover course expenses.
NOTE: All class participants must submit their story idea by Friday, Sept. 22 to give CFA Institute time to find suitable experts.
HOW TO SIGN UP: Email Reuters Training Editor Greg McCune at greg.mccune@reuters.com.
CLASS LIMITED TO 15 ATTENDEES. ALL CLASS PARTICIPANTS MUST REGISTER TO ATTEND THE SABEW FALL CONFERENCE
MSNBC names new biz editor
by
MSNBC.com has named Martin Wolk as the business editor for the site.
Wolk has covered the stock market, the tech industry and the economy for the Web site, the online home of 
NBC News product, since joining from Reuters in 1999. In a pre-digital age, he worked as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers in Ohio and North Carolina.
He also writes an award-winning business news column for the site, Eye on the Economy.
“His contributions to our business coverage have been critical to our success,” says sections Deputy Editor Danny DeFreitas.
Wolk was the 2006 Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ “Best in Business” winner for a column written by a real time news organization.
See the short story on Broadcasting & Cable here.
Forbes' wesbite traffic numbers questioned
by
New York Times reporter Peter Edmonston wrote in Monday’s newspaper that the traffic numbers for Forbes.com are being questioned by some of its competitors as being the No. 1 Internet site for business news.
Edmonston wrote, “But a closer look at the numbers raises questions about Forbes.com’s industry-leading success. For its claim of a worldwide audience of nearly 15.3 million, it has been citing February data from comScore Media Metrix, one of the two leading providers of third-party Web traffic data.
“There are several problems with that statistic, though, and comScore has since revised the figure downward to less than 13.2 million as part of a broader revamping of its worldwide data for many sites. Jack Flanagan, executive vice president at comScore Media Metrix, said the new figures were released ‘a couple of months ago’ after it changed its methods for estimating global audiences.
“There is also the question, given Forbes.com’s user figures, of where those visitors were going. According to comScore, 45 percent of its February traffic went to ForbesAutos.com, a companion Web site heavy on car reviews and photos. About three-quarters of the ForbesAutos.com traffic came from outside the United States.
“Since February, comScore said, Forbes.com’s traffic has tumbled. In July, Forbes Web sites drew 7.3 million unique visitors worldwide, almost a million of whom went to ForbesAutos. That put Forbes.com slightly below Dow Jones (whose online properties include The Wall Street Journal’s Web site and MarketWatch), CNNMoney.com (which includes the sites of Fortune and Business 2.0 magazines) and sites affiliated with Reuters, each of which comScore says had some 7.6 million visitors that month.”
Read more here.
Worth magazine could be sold soon
by
A Reuters article available on the New York Times web site about how magazines companies trying to sell themselves this year are having a tough time with the process noted that the parent of Worth magazine is negotiating with two buyers and could announce a deal soon.
The story noted that Malibu, Calif.-based CurtCo Media Labs LLC, which publishes Worth and luxury lifestyle magazine Robb Report, went on sale in April. The company also found that first-round offers did not come in as high as hoped, sources said. Goldman Sachs, hired for the process, declined to comment as did the company.
The story stated, “The companies are widely regarded as excellent businesses. The price issues they encountered were more a product of lofty valuations than of their operations.”
Read more here.
Worth was started in 1992 by mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments, eliciting comments that the publication would play favorites to its parent company. Fidelity investment guru Peter Lynch was prominently featured in its advertising.
The magazine was sold in April 1999 by Fidelity to a group of investors. By 2002, after losing more than $50 million during the past decade, the publication began seeking new capital. The magazine eventually filed for bankruptcy court protection, and its assets were purchased in 2003 by the owner of the Robb Report, a glossy magazine filled with pictures of expensive cars and homes.
Biz journalism education in South Africa
by
Met this evening with Manoah Esipisu, a senior Reuters journalism based in Johannesburg who is also teaching a business journalism class at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in thw downtown area.
The journalism class he teaches, which is an honors course, is one of only two related to business journalism in the country. The other is at Rhodes University, but that biz journalism program has been dormant for the past two years after the departure of Nixon Kariithi, who now runs the media studies program at Witwatersrand.
Given the fledgling nature of business journalism education in the United States, it was interesting to meet someone in another country who is trying to accomplish the same objective — improve the quality of business journalism.
Here are some of the details of the class Esipisu is teaching:
– He’s had 12 students in each of the two semesters it has been offered. Most of the students are actually working business journalists who obviously need to quickly develop their skills. The class meets in the late afternoon after the students leave their full-time jobs.
– The class has Saturday writing sessions where Esipisu gives them realistic assignments, such as covering the firing of the finance minister of an African country. Esipisu also likes to forward to his students story assignments he receives at Reuters but is not covering.
– Witwatersrand is looking at converting the program to a master’s degree in financial journalism.
Esipisu is one of the most experienced and talented business journalists in Africa, so I imagine that the class provides a lot of practical application and experience. He was in Zambia before coming to Johannesburg in 2002, and he covers political and general news, macroeconomics and black economic empowerment in South Africa.
A Kenyan, he is one of Reuters’ experts on the African Union and its continental and regional economic groupings such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, a role that allowed him to tour more than half the countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well as England and the United States. He also serves on the team of Reuters’ specialists on trade and globalization.
I had only talked to Esipisu by e-mail in the past, offering advice on teaching business journalism. Hearing his answers to questions about how he teaches his class, gives me a lot of confidence in business journalism education in Africa. He is now working on offering business journalism training in the eastern part of the continent, possibly in Rwanda.
Pearson buys Mergermarket to improve FT
by
London-based Pearson Plc has acquired Mergermarket, a company that specialized in providing data on mergers and acquisitions, in an attempt to improve the data being offered to subscribers of its Financial Times newspaper, according to a Reuters story.
The Reuters story stated, “Mergermarket’s flagship product combines data about corporate mergers and acquisitions from around the world with news gathered by 160 journalists in 31 countries. It mainly sells the information to investment banks and law firms.
“The closely held company was founded in 2000 and does not disclose financial information. London-based Pearson, which generates most of its profit from publishing educational materials, said it expects the deal to add to its earnings per share in 2007, the first full year after the purchase.
“‘We see opportunities to connect mergermarket and the FT Group, from the Financial Times and FT.com to our specialist financial magazines and Interactive Data Corp. ,’ FT Group Chief Executive Rona Fairhead said.
Read more here. BusinessWeek parent McGraw-Hill was apparently also interested in acquiring Mergermarket.
When biz journalists go to Sun Valley
by
Business journalists have flocked to Sun Valley, Idaho to “cover” Allen & Co.’s annual investment conference, even though they aren’t allowed on the premises, noted the Idaho Mountain Express.
Staff writer Greg Moore wrote, “This year, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, The Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters and CNBC are all ‘covering’ the event. Although they can’t do so in the normal sense, since all of the conference’s presentations are closed to the press, there’s plenty to keep tabs on.
“‘It’s all about the periphery,’ said Andrew Ross Sorkin, who covers mergers and acquisitions for The New York Times. ‘It’s about what happens outside the formal conference—who’s talking to whom, and about what to whom. An enormous number of transactions that have transformed the media—their seeds have been planted here.’”
Later, Moore wrote, “Several reporters said one of the interesting undercurrents running through this year’s event is the jockeying for position between established, traditional media and the Internet upstarts. The people who run television stations and newspapers need to figure out how to compete with the Web-based media or, failing that, buy them. The Associated Press’s Liedtke said he considers an invitation to the Allen & Co. conference to be a “stamp of approval” from the establishment—and a sign that a new business is worth watching.
“Reporters said that even if they don’t get much breaking news from the event, it’s a great place to make or strengthen contacts.”
Read more here.
Dow Jones beats Reuters and Bloomberg in British survey
by
Financial professionals from dealing rooms and investment banking operations across England have rated Dow Jones Newswires as the “Best Newswire Service� in the 2006 Dealing Room Survey, conducted by Kimsey Consulting.
Dow Jones Newswires’ real-time coverage, commentary and analysis of the world’s financial markets was rated the best financial news service overall, beating competitors Bloomberg and Reuters. Survey respondents also ranked Dow Jones Newswires first for the speed and reliability of its reporting, as well as for ease of use.
The 19th annual survey, last conducted in 2004, polled end-users and management representing a total of 36,000 staff in British financial institutions, asking them to rate the performance of the newswire services they use. The survey also covered customer satisfaction with market data vendors and all other key financial trading technologies.
“We are delighted and honored that our services have received this vote of confidence from the people who matter most – customers who rely on real-time financial news for the vital information that helps their performance, day in and day out,� said Paul Ingrassia, president, Dow Jones Newswires. “The Dealing Room Survey is particularly significant because those surveyed are sophisticated, demanding professionals, and because the competition in financial news is very intense. We are thrilled to be the only newswire to secure this recognition so consistently in the past four surveys.�
Read more here.
Analyst report: Fox Biz News channel to launch in 2007
by
News Corp.’s Fox News plans to launch a business news channel by the middle of next year, according to an analyst report on Tuesday that cited recent comments by the network’s chairman and chief executive, Roger Ailes, Reuters is reporting.
“Mr. Ailes noted an early-to-mid calendar 2007 target for the launch of a Fox Business Channel,” UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff said in a note to clients after meeting with Ailes.
“Ailes sees opportunity for a competitor to CNBC,” Bourkoff wrote, noting that Ailes was president of CNBC, the General Electric Co.-controlled incumbent business news channel, in the 1990s.
Bourkoff was not immediately reachable for further comment.
Reports in the past month had the channel launching by the end of June, but Ailes quickly downplayed that timetable.
Actress criticizes Fortune list, but what list?
by
Reuters is reporting that Mexican actress Salma Hayek is criticizing a list from Fortune magazine that shows the richest Latin Americans, but there is no such list published by the glossy.
And, thinking that maybe the Reuters reporter had confused Fortune for Forbes, I checked the recent Forbes list of highest-paid celebrities, but Hayek is not on that list.
The Reuters story stated: “‘It’s a huge lie. It’s very, very far from reality. I don’t have that amount of money,’ Hayek told Reuters, after reading an article in Mexican daily El Universal about a list of ‘Latino millionaires’ in the United States.
“A spokesman for Fortune said he was not aware the magazine had published such a list. ‘It’s certainly not a list we’ve done. It seems somebody got their facts mixed up,’ he said.
Read more here.
Just a question: If the list is non-existent, and even the magazine is questioning where the list came from, then why did Reuters write a story about an actress denying a fictitious report from a business magazine? To show us that they can get in touch with Hayek? I am the biggest critic of these lists, but it appears this criticism is unfounded.