Share your business-story ideas @LindaAustin_ and tweet #bizreads

By Linda Austin on Jul 26, 2011 in Career tips, Featured, Social Media, Story ideas

Call it a cross between the old Al’s Morning Meeting on Poynter and #muckreads on ProPublica – but only for business stories.

Sometimes, as is the case with Will Carless' story on the high cost of building public housing in San Diego, a #bizreads is also a good story idea.

That’s what I hope to create – with your help – using my Twitter feed: @LindaAustin_

I’ve been contributing business-story ideas and recognizing well-done business stories as part of the Reynolds Center’s Twitter account, @BizJournalism. But I figure I can use my own account, as the center’s executive director, to focus a laser on just those two things: ideas for business stories to do and good business stories that have already been done.

To be useful to all of us, I need your help. Please:

Follow me and send me your business-story ideas @LindaAustin_. I will especially be looking for good national and international stories to localize. So, please share.
Use the hashtag, #bizreads, when you find business stories that are worth savoring. I’ll retweet your #bizreads. If we all contribute, we’ll be able to find great business stories just by searching for #bizreads.

We hope eventually to feature #bizreads on BusinessJournalism.org, just as ProPublica is spotlighting #muckreads.

Together, perhaps we can help each other cover business better.

About the Author

Linda Austin is the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. A former business editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, she spent a decade as a top newsroom leader, serving as the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky; executive editor of The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind.; and managing editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C. She offers business-story ideas and notes good #bizreads @LindaAustin_