Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

Bryan Burrough, one of the co-authors of the seminal business book “Barbarians at the Gate,” writes in the latest issue of Vanity Fair about the demise of Bear Stearns and suggests that CNBC’s reporting had something to do with the downfall.

Burrough writes about CNBC’s reporting of rumors that the firm was having a liquidity crisis.

He wrote,  ”For the next hour the Bear Stearns rumor became a topic of conversation between CNBC correspondents and various market traders and analysts. At 1:50, Matthew Cheslock remarked, ‘The sentiment [on Bear] is pretty negative. The general consensus is ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’”

“A few minutes later, Griffeth, perhaps sensing the network might have gone a bit too far, asked Dennis Kneale, ‘What about the jittery nature of this market right now? Are we starting to believe some rumors that may or may not be true?’ Kneale agreed. ‘Someone,’ he observed, ‘is always making money on the other side of that bad news or that rumor.’

“Yet CNBC’s coverage remained anything but skeptical of the rumor. At two the network’s new ‘money honey,’ Erin Burnett, headlined the hour by announcing ‘credit issues at Bear,’ never mind that there was no such thing. She turned to correspondent David Faber, who observed, ‘Of course, no firm’s ever going to say that they are having trouble with liquidity, and, in fact, you’ve either got liquidity or you don’t. So if you don’t have it, you’re done. Those are the kinds of concerns in this market, concerns of confidence You can have crises of confidence, causing meltdowns.’

Read more here. There’s also an interesting section about Bear Stearns deciding what CNBC correspondent would get to interview its CEO, with the Bear PR people noting that those who would be turned down would be upset.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer will stop publishing a Monday business section and move the content from that section into other days, according to an announcement from publisher Terry Egger.

The announcement stated, “Beginning next week, Business will no longer be a printed section on Mondays. In its place, the Business page on cleveland.com will be reorganized and improved to offer the best of the weekend’s coverage of workplace, personal finance and small-business issues. It will also have online-only features that set the stage for the coming business week.

“And several of your favorite Monday features — like Teresa Murray’s Money Matters and PD versus the Pro — move to Saturday and Sunday business. We’re making room for them by dropping the end-of-the-week stocks. On Sunday, the mutual fund lists will be recast as the more focused Lipper 200, an investor-friendly list of the 200 most actively traded funds of the week.”

Read more here. The paper says that breaking business news on Sunday will be in Monday’s A or metro sections. 

Amanda Drury from CNBC Asia is filling in this week on “Street Signs” at 2 p.m. for normal anchor Erin Burnett, who is on vacation.

Drury is co-anchor on two of CNBC Asia Pacific’s signature morning business programs Squawk Box and CNBC’s Cash Flow.She brings 9 years of financial and business broadcasting experience to CNBC.

Australian-born Drury has lived and worked in Asia for ten years. She joined CNBC Asia Pacific in 2001, as anchor of Market Watch and Business Centre Australia. In addition to tracking the markets and speaking with business and political leaders across the region, Amanda has hosted numerous feature programs such as CNBC’s personal finance show Grow Your Wealth and tech-focused Generation-e. 

Drury began her broadcast career in Sydney’s radio industry. Thereafter, she joined Bloomberg TV in Tokyo, before coming to CNBC’s regional headquarters in Singapore. However, she started her working life in Japan in international relations, as she is fluent in both Japanese and French.

Amanda studied Fine Arts and Languages at the University of Melbourne. She also attended the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

Arif Durrani of the British Web site Mad.co.UK writes Monday about the first advertising campaign for the newly merged Thomson Reuters. The ads will appear on CNBC.

Durrani writes, “The 30-second ad, created by creative agency Ogilvy, plays off the financial specialist’s new strapline ‘Knowledge to Act’, which replaces Reuter’s former mission statement ‘Know now’.  

“The creative begins with the company’s new brand logo emerging in a shot of the New York skyline.

“The moving orange dots are said to signify the ‘intelligent information’ Thomson Reuters provides for its clients around the world.

“The ad will run across CNBC US and CNBC Europe from today and be accompanied by a 10-second animated logo.”

Read more here.

Richmond Times-Dispatch deputy business editor Gregory Gilligan wrote his last “Biz Buzz” column in Monday’s paper, and he reflects about 15 years of column writing.

Staff writer Louis Llovio is taking over the column.

Gilligan writes, “Sniffing out the news was tough at times, but it was fun.

“In the past 15 years, I have received countless phone calls, letters and e-mails from readers thanking me for telling them about a new development, a new shop or a nugget of news about a local company or chain.

“Because my photo has appeared here every week, readers have stopped me in the grocery store, at the mall, in church and even in New York City to tell me how much they enjoy reading the column or to pick my brain.

“Store owners and company executives also have said how my column helped inform readers about their business.”

Read more here.

The Kankakee Daily Journal in Illinois, which previously had eliminated the stock listings from its Sunday paper, has now brought them back due to reader demand.

Weekend editor Tim Yonke writes, “Over the last two weeks a significant number of readers phoned, wrote and e-mailed editors here and asked, ‘Where’s my stock page?’

“Well, I can happily report that the stock page has returned. It can be found today on page B3 as part of our new and expanded local Business section. Consider it a two-week summer vacation.

“Because we had never heard much concerning the stock page prior to its brief hiatus, it was part of what I mentioned in a previous column about changes to our Sunday edition. As I said previously: When readers speak, we listen. The stock page is a perfect example. In these turbulent economic times, keeping track of your money in the market is a good idea.”

Read more here.

Damon Cline, the business editor of the Augusta Chronicle, is leaving the paper to become public information specialist at the Medical College of Georgia’s Division of University Advancement.

In Monday’s paper, Cline writes, “My favorite assignment, without a doubt, has been covering business news for The Augusta Chronicle during the past decade. Ten years is not long compared to many journalism careers – there are people who sit less than 50 feet from me who have been in the business nearly a half-century – but it is the longest tenure of any business reporter/editor in modern history at The Chronicle, a publication known as ‘The South’s Oldest Newspaper.’

“The next crop of business journalists is ready to bring you the local financial news of the day. I leave the business section of this newspaper in the capable hands of senior business reporter Tim Rausch, who will be taking over in the interim while my full-time replacement is sought. Tim’s interim duties also include taking over this column, so, after I am gone, Scuttlebiz will live on.

“During my time in Augusta, I’ve seen a handful of PR shills try to make a buck by masquerading as business journalists. I can assure you that Tim and business reporter LaTina Emerson will continue to be your No. 1 source for local business news. No one else does it better, and you know it. That’s why you keep coming back for real news day in, day out.”

Read more here.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is cutting its daily stock listings and instead will run the Associated Press Money & Markets package.

Lisa Green writes, “The new ‘Money & Markets’ features will appear Tuesday through Friday and include an industry spotlight, which analyzes the performance of an industry or sector, and a short centerpiece story that will shed light on market trends.

“The Sunday Business pages starting July 6 will also have ‘Money & Markets’ features, including a Fund Focus that highlights a mutual fund with outstanding performance, and Industry Rankings that show broader trends in the stock market.

“We’ll continue to publish other popular content, including the snapshot of market indexes, commodities prices, interest rates and foreign exchange currency prices. Although we are reducing the number of individual stocks and mutual fund listings, we are nearly doubling the number of companies on the popular list of Stocks of Regional Interest.”

Read more here.

Tim Arango of The New York Times writes Sunday about how Reuters is trying to increase its presence in developing countries by providing market data for all kinds of commodities.

Arango writes, “To that end, the company has been testing a program called Reuters Market Light for several months in Maharashtra, India’s third-largest state, about the size of Italy. The state is one of India’s prominent agricultural centers, with farmers growing onions, oranges, corn, soybeans, wheat and bananas. But the farmers’ business suffers from the difficulty of comparing prices from one market to another.

“’We kind of saw that there was a clear market inefficiency,’ said Mans Olof-Ors, a Reuters employee who had the idea for Market Light three years ago. ‘The farmer would decide which market to travel to, then would just sell to that market. So there was no competition between markets.’

“Reuters has dispatched about 60 market reporters to the region to report on the going price for, say, oranges or onions, and to package the data into a text message that is sent to subscribers.

“The service is signing up about 220 subscribers a day at a price of 175 rupees, or about $4.10, for three months at post offices throughout Maharashtra. (The average monthly income of a farm household is about $50, according to the Indian government.) The service has about 40,000 customers so far — a tiny portion of India’s farm population, which is in the hundreds of millions, but it proves that many farmers are hungry for more information.”

Read more here. 

The Hartford Courant newspaper will start putting its business section in the A section and put all stock listings on its Web site, writes managing editor Barbara Roessner in Sunday’s paper.

Roessner writes, “Connecticut business news, and reporting on the economy and personal finance, will also move into the A section on weekdays. A more magazine-style approach will consolidate shorter blasts of news into a daily summary, and give more in-depth treatment to issues of particular relevance to our readers, from the trajectory of the local housing market to Pratt & Whitney’s chances of winning a new contract.

“Stock tables will move online, where most readers are already accustomed to going for the daily gyrations of the market. National and international news will be treated similarly — in brief and in depth — in the A section.”

Read more here. Roessner also writes that the paper’s Sunday Consumer section will be beefed-up. She also noted that some staffers were “appalled” at moving business news into the A section.