What Andrew Ross Sorkin reads
Andrew Ross Sorkin, who oversees the Dealbook site for the New York Times and writes a column in the Tuesday business section, talked with Erik Hayden of The Atlantic about what he reads to keep up with business and financial news. Sorkin said: I first hit The New York Times front page, business section and […]
Advice for covering Black Friday
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE Sue Stock, the former retail reporter for The (Raleigh) News & Observer, sent out several years ago a memo to the N&O’s business desk staff on how to cover Black Friday. I republished her suggestions, with her approval, in the second edition of “Show me the Money: Writing Economics and Business […]
How to succeed in financial journalism
Hedge fund manager, author and blogger James Altucher, who was a columnist for the Financial Times from 2004 to 2009, posts on his blog his eight keys for success in financial journalism. Here are the first four: 1) Scoops are no longer important. It used to be if you had a scoop you had at […]
How a mistake makes it into the business section
Patrick Pexton, the ombudsman for the Washington Post, writes about how the business section of the paper recently had an error. Pexton writes, “The Natural Resources Defense Council is one of the country’s largest environmental groups with 1.3 million members, an annual budget of $95 million and a staff of some 300 lawyers, scientists and […]
Shorter stories in WSJ means nothing to readers
Felix Salmon of Reuters argues Tuesday that the research from Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review showing that the Wall Street Journal is producing fewer longer stories doesn’t mean much in today’s journalism world. Salmon writes, “If you look at the chart of stories over 1,500 words, it peaked at 800 per year in […]
Long stories replaced by shorter ones at WSJ
Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review has quantified the decrease in the number of longer stories published in the Wall Street Journal since it was acquired by News Corp. Chittum writes, “The Wall Street Journal’s page one has long been the standard-bearer for business writing and reporting, at least for newspapers. It took news […]
Be more careful with the “no nonsense” phrase
Mike Hoban of Fast Company magazine wants business journalists to be more careful in using the “no nonsense” phrase to describe managers and executives. Hoban writes, “Business writers are fond of using that expression as a compliment of sorts, but it’s unclear what it means. Does it mean a manager–male or female–who wears No Nonsense […]
It’s good to be Michael Lewis
Jessica Pressler of New York magazine profiles business journalist Michael Lewis, the author of “The Big Short” and a Bloomberg News columnist. Pressler writes, “Lewis is often referred to as a business writer, and this is sort of true, in that his narratives usually focus on some kind of market, be it for bonds or […]
What Forbes taught a biz journalist
Leigh Gallagher, an assistant managing editor at Fortune, writes about her time at rival Forbes from 1998 to 2004 in the wake of the publication of former managing editor Stewart Pinkerton‘s book “The Fall of the House of Forbes.” Gallagher writes, “Pinkerton, who left in 2009 under, well, not-so-happy circumstances, also delivers one of the […]
A day in the life of a business journalist
Joris Luyendijk of The Guardian in London has a humorous first-person account of an anonymous financial journalist in Britain that sounds eerily similar to what an American business journalist does each day. In part, it reads: “A working day in the life of this financial journalist? Well, actually, that can be quite boring I’m afraid. […]
