Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

According to a memo posted on the Romenesko site, Dow Jones Newswires will begin handling all breaking news stories for itself, the Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com starting in January.

The memo stated, “For Newswires, this will mean fuller participation in the spot-news process in the U.S. and a broader responsibility to quickly produce stories that serve all groups.

“For WSJ.com staff, the time saved in not duplicating these stories will be put to tasks more geared to the online world — blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts, and additional sidebars or other elements that add to readers’ understanding of business and world news. Online editors also will contribute frequently to the editing of spot news.

“For WSJ reporters and editors, this change will help focus their efforts on interpretive and longer-form journalism. In many cases, a story produced by the corporate-news desk will stand for Journal editions overseas and in the U.S.

“However, Journal reporters will remain responsible for their companies and industries. They will be expected to follow announcements and conference calls, to read the stories produced by the new desk and to look for ways they can add real value or analysis. Value-added material will usually be sent as soon as possible—not held for the next print edition deadline—to maximize the benefit to our real-time outlets, which operate in intensely competitive spheres.”

Read more here.

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram will introduce a new weekly commercial real estate section in the Dec. 3 edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram in what appears to be a venture closely tied to local real estate brokers.

The broadsheet, section-front feature debuts following months of planning between the newspaper and Maine’s commercial realtors.

“We created a weekly publication to showcase this vital sector of the economy,� said Anton Kaufer, group sales manager for real estate at the Press Herald/Telegram. “Our goal is to present the premier statewide marketplace to connect commercial realtors with their customers.�

Each week a Maine commercial listing will appear as a featured property, and an industry professional will contribute a column under the “In The Marketplace� heading.

“The weekly articles written by Maine experts will provide readers with commercial real estate tools and insight on local market conditions and area growth,� said Matthew Cardente, designated owner/broker at Cardente Real Estate in Portland.

“We’re excited about engaging readers and about giving our commercial real estate industry a new voice,� said Kaufer.

In addition to the new section on Sundays, commercial real estate listings will be moved from Friday’s Real Estate section to Friday’s Business section.

Read more here. Just curious about who these “experts” are. Are they journalists, or are they local brokers?

Jill Dutt, the assistant managing editor of financial at the Washington Post for the past eight years, will become assistant managing editor of the Post’s weekend paper as soon as a replacement is named, according to an internal memo.

Dutt earlier this month spearheaded the reduction of the business section’s stock and mutual fund listings.

The memo stated, “As AME/Financial, Jill transformed The Post’s coverage of business, finance and economics. She led the charge to explore the rise of technology firms in the Washington economy. She made her staff the hub of consumer journalism in The Post, from real estate to video games.

“Along with Sandy Sugawara, she reinvented the daily Business section as a home of visually arresting and creative journalism. Jill’s Business section was about more than money. Building a talented and diverse staff, she seeded A1 and her own section with innovative pieces about immigration, air security and the cultural impact of technology, as well as first-rate coverage of corporate crime and globalization.

“Her broad expertise makes her an ideal editor to supervise our largest and most important newspaper of the week. Jill will continue her role as coordinator of the changes in the Home, Food and Health sections. As weekend editor, she will also manage our schedule of major enterprise pieces. We will move immediately to select Jill’s successor in Financial.”

Read more here. Dutt joined The Post in 1995 after seven years at New York Newsday. From October 1995 until September 1996, she served as economics editor before moving to New York as the paper’s Wall Street correspondent. In 1997, Dutt became Business editor. She was named assistant managing editor in July 1998.

The decision to end Jim Cramer’s radio show means that he will focus more on producing video and multimedia for TheStreet.com, the company that he founded announced Wednesday.

In a brief in the Newark Star-Ledger, Greg Saitz wrote, “TheStreet.com announced yesterday the host of CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ will ‘reallocate his time to focus on TheStreet.com video and multimedia initiatives.’ That means Cramer-related stuff on the Web site should quickly reach about 99.99 percent saturation level.

“Visitors to TheStreet.com will find the Summit resident has his own tab near the top of the home page. That tab reveals links to Cramer’s blog, Cramer’s columns, his RealMoney syndicated radio show, ‘Mad Money,’ Cramer’s books, Cramer’s 10 commandments of trading and, well, you get the idea.

“The company said the latest approach will churn out more multimedia material to ’satisfy increased advertiser demand’ and reroute traffic to its flagship Web site.”

Read more here.

Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which will publish its first issue in April 2007, has hired away another top-notch business journalist, and once again the new hire is coming from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post reports.

Keith Kelly wrote, “Elsewhere in the Condé Nast constellation, Joanne Lipman is back on a hiring streak at the new financial magazine Condé Nast Portfolio.

“She just poached Laurie P. Cohen, a 23-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, who will join the staff as a senior writer and investigative reporter.

“Cohen in her storied career was once sued along with James Stewart for stories that eventually became the basis of the best-selling ‘Den of Thieves.’

“The suit was tossed out back in the days when journalists seemed to be considered good guys in the eyes of the law.

“Even this week, Cohen had a lengthy page one lead in the Journal, with Monday’s ‘Seeking an Edge, Big Investors Turn to Network of Informants.’

“It’s considered a big blow to the WSJ to lose her.”

Read more here.

Cohen transferred to the Journal’s New York bureau in May 1986 to cover mergers and acquisitions. In January 1988, she began covering the advertising industry, and in May 1988, she moved to the legal beat. She became a senior markets reporter with the Journal’s Money & Investing group in January 1991, moved to general assignment reporting in December 1993 and was named a senior special writer in March 1994.

In 2003, Cohen was a member of a team of Journal reporters awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting for a series of stories that exposed corporate scandals, elucidated them and brought them to life in compelling narratives.

In 1996, she was a member of two Journal reporting teams that won awards. One team won a Sigma Delta Chi award for public service from the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the tobacco industry. The second team received the award for best reporting in the minority issues category in a contest sponsored by the Deadline Club, the New York City Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Cohen received the 1995 Front Page Award for investigative reporting for her page-one story, “Dirty Dozen?” The story focused on how criminals sometimes attempt to purchase freedom through jury tampering.

The Walton Tribune, which serves a community outside of Atlanta, has moved publishing its business section from Sunday to Wednesday, Patrick Graham writes on today’s paper.

Graham stated, “We have moved the Business section from Sunday to Wednesday so we can continue to provide our readers with local features and columns about topics of interest and importance to the local business community.

“Moving the Business section to Wednesday has, unfortunately, caused us to de-emphasize and sometimes eliminate our Food section on Wednesdays, as we have with today’s edition. Rest assured, however, we will continue to provide this new feature in some capacity so our readers can get the very latest from food columnist extraordinaire, Miss Amelia Adams, as well as a recipe with a twist that can be enjoyed for dinner or on a special occasion.

“When we went to the new format you see before you in September, we wanted to give our readers something special and different without taking away any of the staples of the paper you have enjoyed for years, like local news, opinions and sports. I believe we have accomplished this important mission, and we will continue to do so moving forward.”

Read more here. Better the Food section than Business, right?

Media Life Magazine has a nice story about journalists who have taken buyouts recently from their newspaper, and what they go on to. One of those featured in the article is Kathy Thatcher, a former assistant business editor at the Dallas Morning News.

Lisa Snedeker wrote, “Kathy Thatcher is one of 111 Dallas Morning News employees who decided to take the recent buyout offer.

“’I’m interviewing for editing and public relations jobs – with regular hours and less stress,’ says Thatcher, after more than a decade at the Dallas paper, most recently as an assistant business editor.

“’Only one opportunity is with a publication, and it’s a trade magazine. I have two elementary-school children and a husband who won’t leave Dallas, so I’m out of the newspaper business, probably for good.’

“She says others who took buyouts are going back to school to pursue master’s degrees or are retiring. One went to work for the Associated Press.”

“Overall, among takers of buyouts, there’s a sense that the good years are past for newspaper work, and the time is right to leave, as painful as it may be.”

Read more here.

Fox business anchor Neil Cavuto notes that Christmas sales have been strong, yet he wonders why so many in the media have been ignoring the big boost and focusing instead on Wal-Mart’s weak sales.

Cavuto stated, “That’s 140 million shoppers, spending on average slightly more than $360. A lot more than the $302 they spent last year.

“As I said, about 19 percent more. Again, it is a big number. But apparently to much of the media, it’s not a big deal.

“More talk about how Wal-Mart disappointed. Not much talk about how almost everyone else did not. I have a theory on that.

“Frankly, Wal-Mart’s been bashed in the press so much, I’m surprised anyone’s showing up there. Still, its stores were busy too.

“But most who report on this stuff were busier reporting what stinks, not what soars.

“Stuff like flat screen TVs, big. Electronic toys, big. Toys of all sorts, big. Cheap shoppers, not big.

“I know it’s still early. Certainly too early to say things will be great.

“But also way, way too early to say they won’t.”

Read more here. Funny, but my impression of the media coverage of the Christmas shopping season so far has been that everybody is saying that sales will be great.

The Street.com’s Marek Fuchs is still wondering why all of the Black Friday coverage of the Christmas shopping season is focusing on sales and not what really matters to these retailers — profits.

Fuchs wrote, “Please hold The Business Press Maven’s guiding hand for a moment here so he can walk you through the confusion of post Black Friday coverage. Not only is it confused, but the only factor that really matters — profitability — barely gets a mention.

“Any investor who ever chases after the reporting of top line numbers without considering what role discounts played and what, if anything, will fall to the bottom line leaves their flank exposed, big time. That’s why even before we start sorting this out, The Business Press Maven is in ill sorts.

“First, the overexcited headlines: ‘Black Friday Turned Green at the Malls Before Dawn,’ yells The New York Times, leading with: ‘The clock struck midnight. Then the mall struck back.’

“The New York Post hyperventilates even further: ‘Big Spenders Lift Retailers To Blowout Sales.’

“The Associated Press is more understated, but the takeaway is the same: We’re in the money. ‘Retailers hope pace of sales continues.’

“Talk abounds about sales numbers, traffic, early openings and even — approvingly — the discounts that drove much of the traffic and sales. Which is where The Business Press Maven — who, as you know, believes we are going to have a good though not spectacular holiday season — urges a note of caution.

“Sales numbers don’t matter in the end unless the sales are profitable. Those discounts can eat into profits pretty quickly, as can those longer hours, with workers paid double time. Let’s think in terms of store profits, not sales, as the business media does.”

Read more here. Fuchs likes a Reuters story that makes the point about profitability.