Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

Howard Gold, the executive editor of MoneyShow.com and former editor of Barron’s Online for 10 years, wonders why Conde Nast Portfolio, a business magazine closed after two years, was even launched.

Gold writes, “How can anyone have launched a new print business magazine in 2007? And although in some journalistic circles, print — and a certain cable network — are still the gold standard, the audience for financial information and analysis migrated online a long time ago. Any business that ignores that is doomed to fail.

“That’s why when I read the accounts of life inside Portfolio’s gilded fishbowl, I wondered, what planet are these people on? And what century do they think they’re in? Overpaid writers strutting and griping — and not producing. Ego-driven news meetings where nothing was resolved. A reported $100 million of Conde Nast’s money down the drain. And never a clear statement of what this particular magazine was bringing to the table in a very crowded market.

“What jumped out at me most, however, was how much of an afterthought online appeared to be in the grandiose plans of Conde Nast’s reclusive owner S.I. Newhouse, Jr. and Portfolio’s editor in chief Joanne Lipman, formerly a top editor at the print Wall Street Journal.

Read more here.

Nick Kapur of The Motley Fool writes that CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer may have good intentions of helping his viewers, but his strategy of accomplishing that feat is all wrong.

Kapur writes, “It’s like Punxsutawney Phil. The furry little critter climbs out of his hole and either sees his shadow or he doesn’t. Whichever it is, the result has nothing to do with whether winter is over — just like a stock market prediction has nothing to do with the market’s movements.

“The scary part is that Cramer has flip-flopped numerous times, calling the bottom already several times in recent months. While CNBC may gloss over this fact, I’ve taken careful notice. Don’t forget about his theory that 2008 would be the year of natural gas. Ouch.

“The talking heads on TV get paid to put on a song-and-dance show and attract viewers. Your education or your personal success, as Jon Stewart has kindly brought to light, is a secondary priority (or not a consideration at all).

“Whether Cramer turns out to be right or wrong in the end just isn’t the point. The point is that no one can claim to predict the markets — no one. If you follow the advice of those who say they can, it’s likely to cost you thousands (if not more).”

Read more here.

The National Association of Real Estate Editors will hold its 43rd Annual Real Estate Journalism Conference from June 18 to June 21 in Washington, DC.

The conference will include a freelancer forum, plus, NAREE’s leading bloggers and videocasters will show attendees how to get started and how to take it up a notch. There will be plenty of chances to network and brainstorm on the future of journalism, becoming an author, and the news of the day at lunch, during evening receptions and at thelate night NAREE Hospitality Suite.

More than 100 of the nation’s best real estate writers are expected — including winners from NAREE’s 30-category Journalism Awards Competition and Bruss Book Awards.

The ever-popular NAREE’s Meet The Press will offer freelancers, columnists, and publicists face-to-face mini meetings with editors and key real estate journalists for queries and pitches. Back for its 12th year, MTP is chaired by NAR EE past president, Sue Doerfler of the Arizona Republic, who also has an interesting story to tell about her new, highly acclaimed TV show after more than two decades as a print journalist.

“The guy who’s arranging all the DC Conference is NAREE’s chairman, Ken Harney, columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Ken has the biggest Rolodex inside the Beltway, and the reputation to land some great speakers,” says NAREE President Holden Lewis of Bankrate.com.
    
Speakers invited to NAREE’s 43rd annual conference include HUD Secret ary Shaun Donovan, and top officials from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. NAREE is arranging briefings on Capitol Hill with key members of Congress and their staffs. 

NAREE will tour National Harbor, a 300-acre mixed-use project on the Potomac waterfront and the Forest City urban redevelopment on the Anacostia River.

To register, go here.

The Knight-Bagehot business journalism program for mid-career journalists at Columbia University School of Journalism will admit nine new fellows for the 2009-2010 academic year.

The fellows are:

• Raul Gallegos, 35, a foreign correspondent covering oil and politics for Dow Jones Newswires from Caracas, Venezuela;
• Martha Graybow, 38, a correspondent for Reuters since 2001 who currently oversees U.S. legal affairs coverage from the New York bureau;
• Jackson Hewett, 33, a video producer for BBC’s New York bureau who creates up to three packages a day on corporate or economic news;
• Roland Jones ‘97, 37, an editor and producer for the business news section of MSNBC.com, where he manages breaking news, edits stringers and writes a weekly column on the automotive industry;
• Amit Paley, 27, a financial investigative reporter for The Washington Post since 2008, who broke a series of stories on loopholes, mismanagement and lack of oversight related to the $700 billion financial bailout;
• Joellen Perry, 34, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal since 2006, who covers the European economy and the European Central Bank from Frankfurt, Germany;
• Rob Wherry, 41, who joined SmartMoney in 2005. He now serves as a senior editor for SmartMoney.com, where he oversees the site’s investment coverage;
• Nicole C. Wong, 30, who covered workplace issues, travel and tourism as a business reporter for The Boston Globe until volunteering for a layoff earlier this year to protect a co-worker’s job;
• Christine Young, 56, a business reporter for the Times Herald-Record (Middletown, N.Y.), who has earned investigative journalism awards for both newspaper and TV reporting.

Read more here.

A group of 15 reporters at The Wall Street Journal have won the Institute on Political Journalism’s prestigious Excellence in Economic Reporting Award for 2009.  Their 10 articles described the turning points to last fall’s Wall Street crash and the ensuing global credit crunch.

The team will be awarded $10,000, one of the largest prizes in journalism, and a bronze eagle-head statue crafted by the late Jeff MacNelly, famous political cartoonist.

This annual award normally goes to an individual or small group of reporters who craft a specific series of articles demonstrating the working of one area of business and markets.  However the judges found that the scope and drama of the credit crisis warranted the small army of reporters that was deployed by the Journal editors.  

“Their coverage was detailed, dramatic, precise and contained too many revelations to count,” said Rich Thomas, retired Newsweek reporter, who chaired the judges panel.  The other judges were Mike Ruby, former editor of U.S. News and World Report, and John Merline, former Washington bureau chief of Investor’s Business Daily and USA Today editorial writer.

Reporters authoring or co-authoring one or more of the articles were Kara Scannell, Susanne Craig, Carrick Mollenkamp, Serena Ng, Aaron Lucchetti, Deborah Solomon, Dennis K. Berman, Jon Hilsenrath, Damian Paletta, Mark Whitehouse, Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, E.S. Browning, David Enrich, Jeffrey McCracken, and Kate Kelly.

The WSJ was picked from more than 50 other entries.

James Pethokoukis, managing editor of the Money & Business section at U.S. News & World Report, has quit to join Reuters commentary team as a columnist based in Washington, D.C., covering U.S. economic policy, regulation and the economy.

Pethokoukis will report into Jeffrey Cane, U.S. editor, commentary, and will start on May 18.

Pethokoukis has been a writer and blogger for U.S. News & World Report since 1997, as well a contributor to CNBC. Previously, he worked at USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily. Pethokoukis is a 1989 graduate of Northwestern University, where he double majored in Soviet politics and American history, and is a 1991 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism.

“The credit crisis has tilted the balance of U.S. financial power away from New York and towards Washington, so the hiring of James Pethokoukis, who will cover the Capitol and its environs, is an essential plank in our plans to build a commentary team that will focus on the biggest stories in financial markets globally,” said Jonathan Ford, global commentary editor, in a statement. “James will contribute to all parts of the service we are building. He will post to our global financial blog and will also write longer columns on the evolving debate. I am very excited to have him aboard.”

“I am extremely excited to be joining the world’s premier news organization,” said Pethokoukis. “The commentary service is an amazing opportunity both for both Reuters and me, personally.”

Martin Howell of Reuters reports Wednesday that Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Schapiro has a job for some of the investigative journalists who have recently been laid off.

Schapiro is also worried about the decline in investigative business reporting and what they might mean in terms of tips to the regulatory agency.

Howell writes, “‘It’s an absolute worry for me because I think financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about,’ the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission told the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit in Washington on Tuesday.

“‘But for journalists having been dogged and determined and really pursuing some of these things, they might not be known to the regulators or they might not be known for a long time,’ she said.”

Later, Howell quoted Schapiro as saying: “Investigative journalism actually would be a pretty interesting skill set for us to have. We’ve talked about financial analysis, we’ve talked about forensic accounting being skill sets that we really need — understanding of complex trading, strategies and systems, but it’s one of the things the SEC has to do. It has to really broaden its horizons and bring in people who think about things a little differently than it has historically.”

Read more here.

Kris Kitto of The Hill writes Wednesday about Peter Barnes, the Fox Business Network senior correspondent in Washington.

Kitto writes, “The veteran business journalist needs to provide no further evidence that he is in the midst of reporting the biggest story of his lifetime, yet it keeps showing up.

“A co-worker walks into his office to tell him that CNBC is reporting that the Treasury will release the results of its banking stress tests on May 4.

“‘Can we match that?’ he asks. Barnes turns to his computer keyboard and begins to narrate his response: ‘So I just had to ping three sources,’ he says.

“Behind him, a half-empty bookshelf holds what looks to be survival food — a box of Fig Newtons and two cartons of Lance Toast Cheese sandwich crackers.”

Read more here.

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Bernie Kohn, the investigations editor of the Baltimore Sun who was the president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers until earlier this week, lost his job Wednesday at the Sun as part of editor layoffs.

The Sun lost its standalone business section during the week last year. Kohn, who had been assistant managing editor for business until last year, said he plans to stay in the Washington/Baltimore area.

“I still live for the story as much as I did when I started in this business 27 years ago,” said Kohn.

Kohn oversaw the decision by SABEW to move its headquarters from the University of Missouri, where it had been for the past 25 years, to Arizona State University later this year. His tenure as SABEW president ended Monday.

Previously he was with The Washington Post as night business editor. Before that he spent three years as business editor at the Tampa Tribune. His Tampa staff received honors in the SABEW Best in Business contest each year.

Before moving to Tampa, Kohn was a business reporter at the Charlotte Observer and The Pittsburgh Press for 10 years, primarily covering the airline industry. He was also a night metro editor in Charlotte. He has won numerous regional and state business writing awards and was a Gerald Loeb Awards finalist in 1991 for a story showing how the owner of a former asbestos manufacturer had stripped the company’s assets before putting it into bankruptcy. The move left little or nothing for asbestos claimants.

Kohn is a graduate of Ball State University, where he was one of the original founders of an annual scholarship for students intending to go into print reporting.

Grace Leong, a reporter for the Provo Daily Herald in Utah, reports Wednesday that Business Connect magazine, a local business publication with more than 15,000 subscribers statewide, has closed its doors.

Leong writes, “He said the company has been mulling discontinuing Business Connect because of the industrywide slump in advertising revenues in the third and fourth quarter of 2008.

“‘We were best known in Utah for Business Connect, but it accounts for only one-third of our total revenue and ad sales are in a decline now,’ Hill said. ‘We anticipated we were going to have a 25 percent drop in ad revenue for 2009 as we tried to renew advertisers for the year. Had this not happened, we would have continued with Business Connect for some time.’

“Founded in 2003, Lumin, which now has five workers and up to 20 freelance writers, laid off two employees in advertising and production in the past year, as it prepared for the change in its business model.”

Read more here.