How to cover the economy and make it interesting

By David Morrow

One of my more interesting tasks as a business editor was walking over to a reporter’s desk and assigning the lucky mate a story on the economy. Usually, I’d receive a not-so-hidden grimace and audible moan before I made a quick exit so the reporter to tend to his newly assigned story.

Not being an overly kind sort, I usually let the reporter struggle a bit before I walked back over to his desk to give him a pat on the back and some suggestions on how to write an engaging article.

I do have compassion for reporters who cover the economy. Writing about the economy is an arduous task, especially now when it is common for economic data to conflict. On top of this frustrating mantra, the nation’s leading economists have apparently issued an edict that encourages their kind to routinely disagree with each other.  (A must read on this calamity is Paul Krugman’s recent article in the New York Times magazine.)

Still, even with the difficulties of covering the economy, there is never a reason to turn in dull copy. A laborious write will always make for a laborious read. And who among us can afford that? Here, then, are a few suggestions on how to cover the economy with some spice, regardless of what medium you use to present your story.

Localize econ stories

It is crucial to make your economic story local. If you decide against this, you’re giving yourself a difficult assignment of making your work interesting. Remember that readers, listeners and viewers almost universally enjoy reading and hearing about themselves.

Making an economic story local almost guarantees a ready audience for your work.
How can I be so sure of this, you may ask? Well, a theory that I ascribe to is that there is nothing more voyeuristic than money, and a story on the economy is really about a person’s relationship with the greenback. And regardless of where you live, the consumers in your area have a relationship with money. Your local story on the economy is a way to reveal what goes on in someone else’s wallet. And who – given our touch economic times — can resist a story on that?

Making your economic story local is also shrewd journalism. Another theory that I adhere to is that our economy is actually a group of near countless local economies that can differ wildly by area and region. A national economic story may not reflect what’s going on in your area. You want to capture what is going on in your community with your audience and relate that to what’s happening with the remainder of your state and the nation.

Have a little fun

Try to have some fun when you do this. Yes, I used the word fun. Let’s give it a whirl and see what happens. Ready? One of the dullest indicators that comes up routinely when covering the economy is inflation, which in English, means a progressive increase in prices. But how would you know that inflation is increasing in your area? Perhaps your area is experiencing deflation, where prices are generally decreasing.

Remember that we are having fun, and to do that, we’re going to start our own local indicator. Imagine the wonderful readership that you will generate by referring readers or viewers to your indicator that’s on your Web site that analyses what’s really going on in your area.

This is fairly simple to do. Pick any supermarket, although I would avoid one that has a reputation of having prices that are high or low for your area, and shop for staples: a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a bottle or box of laundry detergent (make sure you always buy the same size) and other items of this sort. Tally the total for your base amount and check this once a week. You want to do this on the same day and avoid items that are on sale. You can write stories on the gyrations of your indicator, noting any percentage changes in the items you choose, and the total of your bill.

Stalking the cheapest gas prices

So why quit when we’re on a roll? Another economic data point that comes up, especially this time of year, is the price of oil and its effects on national households. One excellent indicator would be to do the same gauge with local gas prices that you’re doing with your breadbasket. Before long, you’ll receive queries from readers on where you’re finding the cheapest gas. Imagine the readership you’ll receive when you begin running this as a table or graphic as part of your story.

If you’re beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about starting a local indicator, get over it. Chances are you may not have an economist who lives in your town, and relying on a national economist to tell us what’s going on three blocks away from us is folly. We can solicit their expert opinion, once we present them with our data, but how can we rely on someone to expound intelligently when they may not have never stepped one foot inside our city limits? The answer is that we can’t.

Now that we have our local indicators, we’re going to continue our local bent on the economy every time a data point is spit out by our pals in Washington. Since our local folks like reading about each other, we’re going to give them more opportunity. Anecdotal evidence will allow us to see if a national data point is being played out in our backyards.

Who’s paying down their debt?

A few weeks ago, one economic statistic was released that was astounding: Americans were paying off their debt by enormous amounts. We want to interview people in your area to see if they are doing this, paying careful attention to the reasons of why they are or aren’t doing this. In reporting this research, we’re making a national story a much more interesting local story.

We’re making economic news local but we need to go one step further and make it personal. I am a big fan of commentary, even in the much-avoided first person, and the economy and our relationship with money is ideal for this. It is wise to consider implementing a column, and blog, from a reporter who can pen their daily dealings with their family or personal finances.

My suggestion on this is to have the reporter include the emotion that attached to saving or parting with money so the reader will get treated to more than just a rendition of the cheapest prices in town. (However, that would be interesting but tedious in a daily dose.)

The emotion of money is stronger than most people think. Some 11 years ago, for example, I can’t count the number of times that I was at a party and someone would accost me in an excited tone about how they had doubled their investment in one speculative Internet stock or another. Now, I’m more likely to be accosted in an equally excited voice about how much money my new pal had just saved on everything from gasoline to an airline ticket.

I do this myself, and chances are that many people in your newsroom do as well. Coupons were once regarded as “the paper of the poor.” But I have mine when I enter the local supermarket and have found ready comrades strolling the aisles with theirs as well. If one of us decided to pen a column on this, and other cost savings activities, we’d have a once-closeted audience that would have significant numbers.

Money topics generate feedback

Many editors and reporters shun money and economic topics but these are ideal topics for interactivity for your Web site. Your money writer, who is dishing about their bucks, should receive a fair amount of feedback that can be assembled and published as a separate article. But we want to encourage more feedback by asking our readers and readers what they are seeing with their own experience.

I cannot count the number of stories that I’ve seen recently that declare the Great Recession is at last over. We can run a poll and ask our readers and viewers if they believe this. But more importantly, let’s ask them what needs to happen to them personally before they believe the recession is over. Is it a raise? Is it a year-end bonus? Or is it a feeling? Do they feel comfortable enough to take a vacation instead of a “staycation?”

In covering the economy, you will also have a fair number of hard news stories, but by keeping these and your feature coverage local, you’ll spark more readership and some feedback from your audience. No one enjoys a recession and few of us like having to deal with money. But it’s not going away, so why don’t we try to make the most of it in the meantime. We can also have some fun doing that.

David Morrow was the Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada. He wrote this article before his death on Feb. 1, 2010.