No Comments

Daily chats on developing biz stories

2010
02.09

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism has a new live chat about business story ideas Monday through Thursday on its Web site.

On this page, the folks at the Reynolds Center kick off a discussion about the business story of the day and then offer a place for you to share questions, tips and ideas.

Drop by from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time to get help finding sources, surfacing new angles on perennial stories or localizing national news. You can share the obstacles you’re encountering or the successes you’re having in real time, and get help from others.

Recent hot topics have been localizing the Toyota recalls, finding fresh biz angles for Valentine’s Day and analyzing the business impact of the Mid-Atlantic snowstorms.

You can find archives of recent chats here.

Category Reporting tips, Writing tips |

No Comments

Don’t take no for an answer

2010
02.09

Bloomberg Television anchor Margaret Brennan is profiled on the News on Women site, where she talks about how she got into business journalism.

Here is an excerpt:

“Frankly, if you told me at age 18 or even at age 22 that I’d be doing this for a living, I would have laughed out loud. For most of my academic career, I thought that I was going to work for the State Department or conduct foreign policy work. That is why I studied Foreign Affairs and Middle East Studies as an undergraduate at University of Virginia. I minored in Arabic because I saw that there were more layers to understanding situations than simply studying theory. I wanted to learn the stories of the people living the experiences that I was consulting on in some fashion. It was a very romanticized view of the policy work that actually takes place!

“Thanks to my talented Arabic professors at UVA, I was fortunate to qualify for a Fulbright Hayes grant to study abroad in Jordan. When I returned home, I no longer wanted to work in policy.  My mom suggested that I try broadcasting and I was lucky to land an internship at CNN headquarters in Atlanta. I interned on the international news desk and loved working in a newsroom. I was fascinated by Christianne Amanpour and the work that she had done in Bosnia, Iraq, and other war-torn nations.

“Much to the chagrin of my academic adviser, by the time the summer was over I was pretty certain that I wanted to work in TV. I struck a bargain with my adviser:  I’d go into academia if I didn’t have a successful TV job in five years. I took my first job – working for Louis Rukeyser as a researcher – and I ran with it.  Four years – and many, many long days of work later – I officially made the transition from full-time producer/occasional air reporter to full time correspondent. And after seven years at CNBC, I joined Bloomberg this past July.

“My advice to anyone looking for a job in financial news or simply in broadcasting is to stay nimble, stay informed, have fun and don’t take no for an answer.”

Category Bloomberg |

1 Comment

Morningstar buys Footnoted.org blog

2010
02.09

Morningstar Inc. announced Tuesday that it acquired the Footnoted.org blog and the related Footnoted Pro service for an undisclosed price.

Footnoted.org, a well-known business journalism blog, was founded in 2003 by business journalist Michelle Leder.

Footnoted’s research staff reads hundreds of SEC filings a day to unearth information buried in the fine print, such as evidence of aggressive accounting, excessive compensation, or the type of questionable self-dealing that can indicate more serious problems at a company.

With insight and analysis culled from corporate filings, Footnoted’s free site has become a must-read for professional money managers and analysts, as well as sophisticated individual investors.

The company also publishes Footnoted Pro, a service for institutional investors, such as hedge fund firms, that provides insight on actionable items and trends in filings.

Leder will continue to run Footnoted, and Morningstar will make some content from the site available on Morningstar.com, the company’s investment website.

In the near future, footnoted.org will become footnoted.com. Additionally, Morningstar will also offer Footnoted Pro to its individual investor, advisor, and institutional clients.

“Footnoted and Morningstar share a common goal to shed light on investing, but many investors remain in the dark,” Leder said in a statement. “For the past six years, Footnoted’s small staff has uncovered lots of examples of self-serving actions at publicly traded companies. As part of Morningstar, we’ll be able to provide Footnoted.org’s loyal readers with additional resources from a trusted source for independent research, and we’ll expose thousands of Morningstar clients to our unique content — and what’s truly lurking in public filings.”

Leder became interested in SEC filings early in her career, while writing about a small Florida bank that was engaged in aggressive accounting during the last real estate boom.

As a reporter and editor, she spent 10 years at daily newspapers in Florida, Connecticut, and New York. As a freelance business journalist, her work has appeared in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Portfolio and Slate, among others.

Category Blogging, Markets coverage |

No Comments

More remembrances of Dave Morrow

2010
02.09

Emerson Marcus of The Nevada Sagebrush, the student newspaper at the University of Nevada, has more stories about the impact of Dave Morrow, the former editor of TheStreet.com who became a business journalism professor at the school but died last week at the age of 49.

Marcus writes, “His second calling – the classroom – was an easy transition for the business journalist seeking to help people understand money.

“‘He loved teaching,’ Beth Hammond, Morrow’s sister, said. ‘Our mother always said he’s wanted to do that since he was a little boy.’

“Morrow’s lively demeanor was apparent when he walked through the journalism building, blurting out creative nicknames like ‘Bossman’ for journalism Dean Jerry Ceppos. He was also always willing to lend a hand.

“Journalism professor Rosemary McCarthy had barely known Morrow for more than a month when she needed to buy a new car last summer, but Morrow was there.

“‘He’d say, ‘Well, we’re going,’ and next thing I know we’re driving and I’m test-driving cars all over town,’ McCarthy said. ‘We went to Sacramento twice and I finally bought a car in Sacramento.’”

Read more here.

Category Obituaries |

No Comments

WSJ editor’s tweet enrages Apple’s Jobs

2010
02.08

Ryan Tate of Valleywag reports that a Twitter post by Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray while Apple CEO Steve Jobs was demonstrating the iPad to the paper’s staff upset the executive.

Tate reports, “The Journal’s online executive editor Alan Murray quickly deleted the Feb. 4 tweet, which, it is now obvious, was issued during Apple CEO Jobs’ show-and-tell with select Journal staff. A tipster told us the deletion ultimately traces back to a furious Jobs. We asked Murray for comment, and he wrote back ‘I would love to talk about this, but can’t.’ In a later email, he added:

I will say that Apple’s general paranoia about news coverage is truly extraordinary— but that’s not telling you anything you didn’t already know.

“Indeed, Apple is a notoriously tight-lipped company, particularly under Jobs, and is constantly trying to control the flow of news about its product. Apple sued a teenaged blogger who published scoops about unreleased products; it lied about Jobs’ health problems; Jobs called a New York Times columnist a ‘slime bucket‘ for writing about said health problems; and an employee of key Apple contractor Foxconn had his apartment illegally searched after losing an iPhone prototype (he later committed suicide amid intense pressure from his employer).”

Read more here.

Category Company coverage, Technology coverage, Wall Street Journal |

No Comments

Indianapolis biz journal stands by Steak n Shake story

2010
02.08

Business journalists at the Indianapolis Business Journal told Talking Biz News on Monday that they stand by the paper’s story about the moving of Steak N Shake’s headquarters out of the region, despite a company release stating the story was filled with errors.

In a release issued Monday, the company stated, “This week’s Indianapolis Business Journal (‘IBJ’) lead article printed as its headline ‘Steak n Shake moving HQ.’ The headline, along with much information in the article, is misleading.”

The release also stated, “We normally do not comment on published articles, and though we therefore won’t address the multitude of errors in this piece, we do wish to set one salient fact straight: Steak n Shake Operations Inc., the restaurant chain of 485 units, will maintain its principal headquarters in Indianapolis. Moreover, Steak n Shake’s parent company — currently named The Steak n Shake Company with plans to change it to Biglari Holdings Inc. — is headquartered in San Antonio, a move which occurred some months ago.”

Greg Andrews, the managing editor of the paper, said in an e-mail that, “We’re planning to address the press release in a story we’ll post on our Web site tomorrow morning.”

Cory Schouten, the reporter who wrote the story, added, “We all found it pretty ironic how they actually confirmed our story in their press release. The statement has a San Antonio dateline in reference to The Steak n Shake Co., and they confirm the parent company has moved. They also just updated their website, steaknshake.com, to reflect the new HQ address in San Antonio. Bottom line is Indianapolis has lost a publicly traded company.

“Biglari doesn’t return any media or analyst phone calls, and only communicates with shareholders once a year, this year in New York in April. I called again this afternoon to find out what they meant by ‘multitude of errors’ but again, no response.”

Category Business weeklies, Company coverage |

No Comments

OC Register to send real estate news texts

2010
02.08

The Orange County Register real estate news team announced Monday that it will begin sending daily news updates to reader’s cell phones by text message.

Real estate columnist Jon Lansner writes, “Well, we’ve got one solution for you! The Register real estate news team is now text messaging  a daily alert containing top Orange County housing and property news right to your cell phone. (Yeah, we wish we had a cool iPhone app, but that’s coming! Well, then, we wish we had a cool iPhone!)

“So, how to you get our lunchtime wisdom to your mobile device?

  • Text ‘RENEWS’ to 21321. (For the text message novices, those 5 digits are a short code address for our texting tool!)
  • You will likely get a reply asking you to confirm your desire to get our news. Please replay affirmatively!
  • Note: We don’t charge you. Your phone company may have text messaging fees.

“Our goal is one text alert a day … but if something juicy breaks … we’ll let you in ASAP. (But it will never so good to read while you are driving!)”

Read more here.

Category Blogging, Real estate coverage |

No Comments

Toyota dealers pull ads from ABC stations

2010
02.08

Toyota dealers in five Southeast states have pulled their commercials off ABC TV local affiliates, complaining about the coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News and its chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

Joseph Rhee and Mark Schone of ABC News report, “The ad agency representing the 173 dealers told ABC affiliates last week that the shift was due to ‘excessive stories on the Toyota issues.’ The dealers shifted their commercial time buys to non-ABC stations in the same markets, ‘as punishment for the reporting,’ according to an ABC station manager.

“ABC News and Ross began reporting on the problem of ‘runaway Toyotas’ last November in a series of stories that preceded the large recalls ordered by the company, and apologies for quality shortcomings as well as misstatements about the extent of the defects. Toyota is now expected to add the 2010 Prius to its list of recalled vehicles.

“The shift of commercials away from ABC affiliates was ordered last week, according to Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency that handles the account for the dealers, known as Southeast Toyota.”

Read more here.

Category Company coverage, Coverage, Ethics |

No Comments

Cincy paper, with Toyota plant in back yard, ignoring story

2010
02.08

Bill Sloat of The Daily Bellwether wants to know why The Cincinnati Enquirer hasn’t spent much time covering the Toyota recall although the automaker’s North American manufacturing headquarters are 15 minutes away.

Sloat writes, “The Japanese carmaker’s offices in Erlanger, Ky., are about 15 minutes away from the newspaper’s offices in downtown Cincinnati. The Toyota factory is in Georgetown, Ky., about an hour’s drive from Cincinnati. Yet the Enquirer doesn’t seem very interested in devoting resources to cover national news in its backyard. Apparently, it hasn’t even assigned a reporter to cover the gas pedal crisis.

“The Enquirer has broken no stories, nor has it developed any new angles or raised new issues. The newspaper has printed a handful of wire stories, but hasn’t jumped full bore into covering the Japanese automaker’s woes. The Enquirer — which is owned by the nation’s largest newspaper company — repeatedly boasts to advertisers and readers it is the dominant news source in the region. But boasts can ring hollow. And perhaps there is a caveat.

“Maybe the region’s largest news gathering organization doesn’t want to offend advertisers who sell Toyotas. Maybe it doesn’t want to offend a major corporation with a headquarters in Greater Cincinnati. Maybe it lacks enough staff to jump into the story. Or maybe it just doesn’t give a damn about a major development occuring in its backyard. Of course, that would mean The Cincinnati Enquirer doesn’t want to dig for information. And that would mean the newspaper really doesn’t care about the interests of subscribers and readers who own Toyotas and want to know what the heck is happening.”

Read more here.

Category Commentary, Company coverage, Ethics |

No Comments

Beginning to blog in Peoria

2010
02.08

Paul Gordon, the business editor at the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois, writes how he and business reporter Steve Tarter will begin to blog for the newspaper.

Gordon writes, “Items that appear in the blog may be newsworthy but don’t quite rise to a full story. Or they may be quick updates on stories we’ve already written.

“We will continue to steer clear of rumors.

“The blog will afford us the opportunity to explore national issues that don’t always make it into the newspaper. It will enable us to mention upcoming events or meetings in which you may have an interest.

“‘Minding Business’ also will enable us to tell you more about some of the people we write about. Perhaps, for instance, they have an interesting hobby that doesn’t fit into a story in which they were quoted.

“We will do our best to make it interesting and worth your time. It may not have new items every day, but we are committed to updating it frequently — sometimes more than one item each day.”

Read more here.

Category Blogging |

« Older Entries