The workshops at work
John Gittelsohn has tackled stories on wealth, philanthropy and the pursuits of local business leaders, but he never felt comfortable diving deep into financial statements so some stories only scratched the surface.
That changed in January when Gittelsohn, a business reporter at The Orange County Register, traveled to Arizona to attend the Strictly Financials seminar hosted by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Twelve fellows from around the country learned the ins and outs of reading financial documents from a range of experts in the filed including James Gentry, professor and former dean at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Seminar leaders offered tips on ways to incorporate financials into daily coverage.
The crash course gave Gittelsohn the confidence to take on more complex stories.
One of those first stories — “The Next Housing Casualty?” — appeared on Jan. 31 in The Orange County Register. The story looks at homebuilders and developers with high debt and dropping credit, part of the housing crisis fallout.
“Something I didn’t feel comfortable with before was cash flow, which was really important to look at for these companies,” Gittelsohn said. “Before the class I would see something in a press release and go with that. Now, I can look at things on my own and not just take the release at face value.”
Gittelsohn said Reynolds Center training has helped him to cover his beat more effectively especially since his prior education didn’t focus on accounting or finance.
He recommends the training to other business journalists looking to sharpen their skills.
“Now I can do more complex stories and take a real financial, intellectual look at companies,” Gittelsohn said. “You need to be able to understand balance sheets. You have to understand the lingo. This is a really important skill to have.”
Denis Paiste agrees.
As a veteran reporter and editor for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News, he’s written stories about everything from telecommunications to the business of healthcare, but the Strictly Financials seminar helped him take his coverage deeper.
Paiste used what he learned about SEC filings at the Reynolds Center event to report on Dell Inc.’s $1.4 billion cash acquisition of EqualLogic and to cover the pending sale of Verizon’s landlines to FairPoint Communications of North Carolina.
For both stories Paiste said he scoured SEC filings to find key details to beef up his reports. For example, SEC filings revealed that Verizon and FairPoint Communications agreed to extend their sale contract since they were unable to receive the needed state approval in time.
“I feel like these items are just the tip of the iceberg of what can be uncovered by spending more time investigating SEC filings and I intend to do that, including applying the common size analysis and other financial tools I learned in “Strictly Financials” to enhance my reporting.”
