Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

Nick Martin of Heat City in Phoenix has more information about the brouhaha over newspapers throughout the country running the same personal finance advice columns under different bylines.

Martin writes, “From there, it wasn’t hard to find a page on the association’s website titled “Request Articles,” in which the association’s members can sign up to receive free pre-written stories, which the group says ‘can be used in whole or in part, and can serve as story ideas for personal finance coverage.’

“Some of the group’s members took the suggestion a little too far.

“This afternoon, a spokeswoman with the Financial Planning Association, based in Denver, told me its members are not supposed to pass the articles off as their own, but they are allowed to reprint the articles with their names attached as long as they disclose that they ‘provided’ the article as a surrogate of the association.

“A written guideline for its members, however, is less than clear about the matter. It says: ‘You will notice at the end of each article a tagline which states the article is provided by you as a member of the FPA. Unless you substantially rewrite the articles for publication in your local newspaper or client newsletter, we ask that you use this tagline.’”

Read more here.

Satpal Brainch has been named president and managing director of CNBC Asia Pacific, according to a news release.

Brainch, who has been CNBC’s chief financial officer, continues to report to president Mark Hoffman and will be based at CNBC Asia headquarters in Singapore effective July 6.

“Satpal has done a tremendous job as CNBC’s chief financial officer and been a key player in helping to drive operational excellence at CNBC around the world,” said Hoffman in a statement. “I am confident that Sat’s skills and experience, along with his intimate knowledge of the key attributes of the CNBC brand and the intricacies of all of our products and services around the world is the right combination of talents to continue the tremendous progress we’ve seen at CNBC in Asia.”

Previously, Brainch was based in New York, where he championed growth throughout the business and was a steadfast advocate for thoughtful investment in business news, digital products, long form programming and international efforts. Brainch also worked closely with CNBC’s commercial teams to support cross-regional ad sales, branded content deals and new brand-extending revenue streams.  

Prior to joining CNBC, Brainch was vice president of financial planning and analysis for the NBCU TV Group, where he supported key initiatives across all NBCU TV platforms including network, cable, studios and distribution. Sat also spent six years in GE corporate finance where he had international roles in Japan, India, Brazil and Spain.

Read more here.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers will hold a conference call later this month to help business journalists who have lost their jobs in the economic downturn and are looking for work.

The call will be held on July 14 at 3 p.m. EST.

The call will focus on what hiring managers are looking for today, how to redo your resume to draw attention and where to look for a job beyond the usual places.

On the call will be Kevin Noblet, deputy managing editor of wealth management at Dow Jones Newswires, and Colleen Eddy, director of the career center and business development at the Poynter Institute.

The call will be moderated by Bill Choyke, a former Virginian-Pilot business editor who was laid off at the end of last year.

If you’re interested in participating, send an e-mail to sabew@missouri.edu with “yes” as the subject line to learn how to call in and how to ask questions.

The New York Stock Exchange decided to close at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday after system irregularities were found in the trading.

This was big news among the television-based business news providers, whose shows are timed to the 4 p.m. market close.

So, who had it first? We saw Fox Business Network reporting at 3:53 p.m., CNBC at 3:56 p.m., the Fox News Channel at 4:04 p.m. and MSNBC at 4:10 p.m.

Joanne Flynn Black of Indian American magazine profiles Shibani Joshi of Fox Business Network in the latest issue and talks to her about her career.

Black writes, “When she looked to a career in media, she had very few role models. However, there was one who truly inspired her, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent. She saw him as someone who had taken a traditional Indian job yet transformed it to another level by combining it with media.

“‘Dr. Gupta is not only a leader in the field of medicine but has crossed over and is exccedingly successful in the world o fmedia. ….Becoming an Indian doctor no longer seems so boring, if you follow Dr. Gupta’s lead,” she says.

“Joshi’s career in the media has been varied. Prior to joining Fox, she worked at a variety of media organizations, including Reuters Television and Times Now — a joint venture news channel with the Times of India, ImaginAsian TV’s “The Pulse” South Asian variety show, and CNNfn. Wanting to pursue business more passionately, she attended Harvard Business School where she received her MBA.”

The latest issue is not online.

Noted business writer Michael Lewis, who won a Loeb Award earlier this week for best feature writing, stopped by the Motley Fool offices earlier this week and gave his opinion on the financial crisis, including the reporting and writing.

Jennifer Schonberger writes, “The golden age of finance may be taking a breather, but for financial journalism, Lewis believes it’s just getting started.

“‘There’s an incredible amount of journalism and literature that can be done out of this period,’ he said. ‘I think it’s just the beginning of what there is out there. There is so much that needs to be explained and there is such a hunger for an explanation.’”

Read more here.

Dan Freed of TheStreet.com talked recently with News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch about the media business, including some of his business news properties.

Here is an excerpt:

How’s advertising at The Wall Street Journal?

Marginally better than at other newspapers, but not great. Certainly we have reduced our costs at The Journal I think fully as much as we’ve declined in national advertising.

Do you think micropayments are a workable model for selling news online?

I don’t think people will pay for it. We’re still thinking our way through this and there will be micropayments as part of it, but I’m thinking much more along the lines of subscriptions like The Wall Street Journal does.

Are you annoyed you don’t own CNBC?

No.

Why not?

Because we’re going to enjoy the competition. We have to get wider distribution and that takes time. We are further ahead with Fox Business than we were at this stage with Fox News, and Fox News today is one of our very greatest and largest assets.

Read more here.

TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs questions why some media outlets like the Associated Press haven’t questioned Apple more about the health of CEO Steve Jobs and why he’s working at home after returning from a health leave.

Daniel Hertzberg, a Pulitzer Prize  winning editor and reporter at The Wall Street Journal for more than three decades, joined Bloomberg News service as senior editor-at-large in New York as part of Bloomberg’s global expansion in markets, finance and regional business news.

Hertzberg retired from The Journal last month.

“Dan Hertzberg sets the standard for global news judgment and has few peers embodying the best practices of journalism,” said Bloomberg editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler in a statement.

Hertzberg, who will report to Winkler, said, “I’m happy to be joining one of the world’s most exciting news organizations that is setting standards in the new world of journalism.”

Bloomberg has also hired Jonathan Kaufman, a Pulitzer Prize winning editor and writer, and Daniel Golden, a Pulitzer Prize winner for beat reporting, in Boston; and Anita Sharpe, a Pulitzer Prize winner for national reporting, in Atlanta.

Kaufman comes from The Journal as well, while Golden previously worked for Conde Nast Portfolio. Golden had also previously worked at The Journal as deputy bureau chief in Boston. Sharpe was running a startup company but had worked for The Journal in Atlanta.

Kaufman and Golden will report to Laurie Hays, executive editor for companies. Sharpe will report to John McCorry, executive editor for the Americas.

CNBC’s Dennis Kneale has had it with financial bloggers criticizing his work on the cable news network, and he fired back on Tuesday night.

Gawker’s Ryan Tate reports, “The CNBC Reports host clearly wanted to push back at the ‘cowardly’ critics, and a CNBC segment about his feud gave him the chance to call his online enemies ‘dickweeds’ and slam one in a live interview (see heavily-edited excerpt above).

“In the end, though, it’s the bloggers who win: Whatever his ratings, Kneale’s on-air pushback against a lone, anonymous blogger is sure to be a traffic boon to the targets of his ire — and a revelation to viewers who might never have heard them.”