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Jon Talton

Jon Talton, a 30-year veteran financial journalist, is economics columnist for the Seattle Times. He spent seven years as a columnist at the Arizona Republic, and prior to that was business editor at the Charlotte Observer, Cincinnati Enquirer, Rocky Mountain News and Dayton Daily News. As a blogger, he writes the Seattle Times' Sound Economy, as well as his personal commentary site, Rogue Columnist. Jon is also the author of ten novels, including the journalism thriller, "Deadline Man." His new David Mapstone Mystery, set in Phoenix, is "The Night Detectives," coming in May.

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Learning from the sports section

By on May 16, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton, Sports

As a financial journalist, I always resented the sports section. After all, we cover the most important stories for individuals and communities, about their jobs, livelihoods and economies. But who gets the biggest budgets and largest number of pages? Sports. On reflection, however, there’s much we can learn from sports.

Consider:

• It’s about competition, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.The same is true of business journalism. We write about competition: Companies vs. companies, cities and states vs. cities and states, people fighting to land a limited number of jobs. This is never dry stuff in the hands of a gifted sportswriter, and the same should be true of our stories. Who’s on top? Who’s falling? What are “the standings,” the “pennant race,” the “playoffs” the famous rivalries and where is the search for redemption on your business beat?

Press Box Sports journalism

The press box can be fun. Photo: Jenn Vargas

• Personalities bring readers. Every sports town has its favorite or infamous players, coaches and owners. Sportswriters help us get to know these people as if they were friends, neighbors and even family members. It’s not just about games and stats, but the individual’s tics, fears, arrogance, past glories, potential, disgraces and great quotes. Translate that to your most important and eccentric CEOs, entrepreneurs, managers in the firing line, union bosses, up-and-comers and the same magnetism is yours for the taking.

• Inside baseball stories are actually interesting. If, that is, they are told by expert reporters, offering insider knowledge and new information about a game you already saw and thought you knew. Yes, they primarily appeal to baseball fans (or football, basketball, soccer, etc.), but this is a large and — importantly — fanatical audience. Writing about what’s going on inside your local employers has the same appeal.

• Expertise matters. The best sports sections have expert journalists on every beat, from preps to professional. When a city lands an expansion team, the newspaper typically recruits a major league-level journalist as the lead writer. He or she brings the skill and seasoning, knows the game in and out, is on first-name terms with the players and coaches. In business, this brings a level of sophistication that produces stories that nail the sport and game with authority, tell insiders things even they didn’t know and makes them so riveting that even people with little interest in that company or industry will be drawn in.

• Great writing matters. Sports Illustrated made its name not with the swimsuit issue but with some of the finest writing anywhere. Especially in its glory days, this drew in people who didn’t really care about sports. The great journalist A.J. Liebling covered wars, McCarthyism, politics, life in New York — but he was also a sportswriter, especially in his timeless essays on boxing. At its best, sportswriting tells stories of eternal human dreams, dilemmas, mysteries and allegories. We should be writing this way, too, because the messy business of making and spending money is one of the most compelling human stories (see Gatsby, The Great).

• Destinations and community. Sports sections offer columnists with strong voices, insights and opinions — love ‘em or hate ‘em, you’ve still got to read ‘em. It also offers a chance to create reader forums, Letters to the Sports Editor and hundreds of reader comments on stories. Business sections may never reach this level of fanatical reader interest, but we should try. We’re writing about (or should be) money, power, the chance to get ahead, the intersection of big money and its influence on government, huge corporations that influence our lives and society much more than nine ballplayers.

* Stats. Newspapers long ago did away with pages of stock listings — not a smart thing considering the many older readers who didn’t have Internet access or preferred to read them on dead trees. But the stats are some of the most read items in any sports section. It should be that way for business, too. Now, both in print and online, a host of business information can make for customized tables (and graphics).

 Don’t expect the same money or space. But sports still has much to teach us.

 

And for more about the sports and business, the Reynolds Center has a Beat Basics written by the Arizona Republic’s Craig Harris: Business of Sports, an introduction.

 

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Can the small-business beat be saved?

By on May 09, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Small | Private | Non-profit

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, small-business coverage is the last refuge of cowardly, mediocre newspapers.

Camera Shop, Santa Fe

How small is too small for small business news? Photo: Patti Gravel

Did I just write that? Oh, well. My Management Tourette Syndrome, suddenly blurting out the truth in meetings, was why I was repeatedly warned that I would never make admiral of the Cox, Hearst, Scripps-Howard, Gannett and Knight Ridder navies. So here I am.

Yet it is a truism that most stories about small business are read by the reporter, the small-business owner and, if one is lucky, a copy editor. Some newspapers — no names here — have refined this to merely doing a glance box or two to “showcase” a couple of businesses. The reasons are obvious. Such puff pieces won’t arouse angry calls from local moguls or bring complaints that the paper isn’t being “positive,” and thus is actually the cause of the continuing economic weakness. They also play into the American ideal of the “entrepreneur,” heroic and untainted by plutocracy, and somehow still within reach of all of us cubicle proles.


“The small-business beat
shouldn’t be confused with
coverage of innovation
and entrepreneurship.”

But this way lies irrelevancy for business news. It is an invitation for readers to bolt to the hockey scores, or sites that provide actual business news.

Even in good news organizations, the small-biz beat is often where rookies start. In reality, it’s one of the most challenging assignments in our profession. That is, if it’s done in a way that’s compelling, meaningful, authoritative, sophisticated — and cuts through all the noise on the Web. I’ve rarely seen it done well, even on a national level. Only the Wall Street Journal really does a consistently good job in covering small business.

For metropolitan and smaller newspapers, the first rule is to avoid some snares, as the Bible would say. Do not be taken in by small business. It deserves the same skepticism and due diligence as if you were covering Exxon. Indeed, it requires more, because public companies must disclose such material information as earnings, compensation of top executives, pending litigation, etc. Small businesses don’t have to. Also, don’t ever fall under an “entrepreneur’s” spell. You’re not her advocate, however likeable and charismatic she may appear. Also, be sure to ask plenty of questions and explain things to readers. Don’t be absorbed by the Jargon Borg. Finally, don’t try to mimic magazines such as Inc. It doesn’t work effectively on a local level, and those readers are already reading those magazines, not you.

News orgs should be wary of doing features on a single company, and even more cautious about writing on individuals with no record. It is devilishly difficult to check them out — each should be vetted through court, Dun & Bradstreet and police records, a costly, time-consuming and call-in-a-favor task. Yes, the “heroic entrepreneur” will lie to you. Welcome to our profession. And even if he’s not arrested under lurid circumstances two weeks after your story runs, the story will likely be a crime of dullness.

So what works?

Pizza Place Basile's Hoboken

First question people asked when Basile's Pizza opened in Hoboken, N.J., in 2011 was 'Is it New York-style?' Photo: Joe Beone

Issues is one place to set the target-acquisition radar. How will the Affordable Care Act affect businesses in your city? Do small-business owners even know? (Do get at the facts, not the political spin). Are these firms getting loans again or not? Start at the Fed data on lending and work your way down to the local level. How about small businesses fighting Amazon.com — and usually losing? We face a long-term unemployment crisis — how is their hiring doing? As same-sex marriage makes strides, are smaller companies changing the way they provide benefits to employees? (Another story is how relatively few small businesses provide decent benefits).

Taxes, regulations, trade and lawsuits are all ways to write about small business in a relevant, timely and compelling way. The dramatic changes in the economy have altered small business — tell that story at both the 30,000-foot and fine-grain level. Government austerity and big company cutbacks affect thousands of small vendors — the only way small businesses are such big employers, or once were, is because of their connection with those big customers.

Another useful entry point is to look at smaller businesses that are local touchstones. Your town may also have a famous small-business owner or two. People know them and (usually) love them. How and what they are doing is often newsworthy. This may seem brutally unfair to the nobody businesses or individuals wanting to get “publicity,” but it will get more readers.

When I was business editor at the Cincinnati Enquirer, reporter Meghan Glynn connected with three young women who were starting a pizza restaurant. They agreed to let her follow them for a year as they tried to make it, and write the story however it was turning out. They also allowed her to see the books. The result was a great tale, updated periodically, with interesting people, a cool locale, ups and downs, and real stakes — nobody knew how it would turn out. The story put the business in context with startups in general and the economic situation in the city, leavened with portraits of the likeable owners who nevertheless went through serious trials (and did succeed).

Always be on the lookout for new news that will reach the widest readership.

The small-business beat shouldn’t be confused with coverage of innovation and entrepreneurship. Both are buzzwords. To cover the reality with authority means, for example, looking at gold-standard benchmarks for technology breakthroughs and capital — angel, growth and venture. Relatively few metro areas are really playing in this league.

Finally, remember that if a “small-business reader” exists, he or she wants useful intelligence, just like all business readers. But, as I can’t stop believing, business stories should be the most important local news in the paper. So deploy resources and pick coverage accordingly.

 

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The business press and the adversarial relationship

By on May 01, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton, Manufacturing | Large companies

I was listening to Bill Moyers the other night, where his guest was Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald. The latter talked about official secrecy, the danger it poses to our society and got in a dig at the media for not playing its essential adversarial role to government. It got me thinking about business journalism. Should our work be fundamentally adversarial?

Yes.

This may not be the answer some corporate media leaders want to hear. After all, lightweight small-business profiles and rewritten press releases don’t antagonize advertisers or the friends and social class of publishers and newspaper company CEOs. But the answer is still yes.


“We’re not your publicists,
we’re not your cheerleaders
and we’re not an arm of
your ad campaign…”

We must act as watchdogs at the intersection of business and government (I even set up a beat on this at one point. For example, banking regulators were dangerously co-opted and asleep in the run-up to the financial collapse, safety officials set the table for the lethal fertilizer-plant explosion in Texas, environmental agencies often let companies endanger health and the climate. Then there’s the too-cozy relationship between politicians and big corporate funders.

We must be adversarial with companies, too. As I constantly reminded callers when I was a business editor, “We’re not your publicists, we’re not your cheerleaders and we’re not an arm of your ad campaign…” And I was blessed with publishers and executive editors who backed me up.

Reporters at Michigan Municipal League meeting

Reporters at Michigan Municipal League meeting have their game faces on.

That doesn’t mean we should be unpleasant. By no means should we be vindictive or unfair. We must, however, maintain a skeptical, arms-length stance in our coverage. We should aim for thoroughness, always knowing each story contains many layers, several sides, sometimes unintended consequences, losers as well as winners.

Many CEOs are charismatic — I still resist my soft spots for T. Boone Pickens and Hugh McColl Jr. — their companies may have amazing stories to tell, and it’s easy to be absorbed into the cheerleader Borg. A young reporter gets to hang out with the rich and powerful — heady stuff, even if they silently regard you as the hired help, to be used. Keep your professional bearings.

Always remember that business wields tremendous power in our society. As one chief executive told me last week, “More and more corporations are acting like countries.” Indeed. Readers count on us to be watchdogs of these entities that control their livelihoods, that push forward public policy to selfish benefit and often expect public incentives and benefits while engaging in (perfectly legal) tax dodges. And these are often the “good guys.” Our system also breeds corruption and imbalances.


“A young reporter gets to hang out
with the rich and powerful —
heady stuff, even if they silently
regard you as the hired help”

John Dougherty worked for me at the Dayton Daily News. I had never met a journalist less in thrall of power or the many myths then growing up about the indispensable chief executive or the perfection of “free enterprise.”

As a result, he was the perfect reporter to unearth the pressure that a group of U.S. Senators had put on the top savings-and-loan regulator to go easy on a golden boy businessman named Charles H. Keating Jr. One of those senators was the model of American heroism and integrity, John Glenn. But it was what it was, and we broke the story of the Keating Five, a pivotal part of the S&L scandal. I still remember when Glenn, in a meeting at the Daily News’ stately Governor’s Library, vaulted up from his chair to go over the historic conference table after Dougherty and me. John appeared ready to rumble, too; fortunately cooler participants intervened. Power doesn’t like to be questioned. It likes even less to be caught.

Regrets? I have more than a few. Allen Roberts, a reporter who passed away so young in 1993, was fascinated with the Financial Accounting Standards Board. “FASB, FASB! I can’t get it out of my head,” he would say, to the point that it became a joke between us. But at the time, it seemed like a dull cul-de-sac and I didn’t do a good enough job of prying the heart of the matter out of his brilliant-but-crowded mind. As things turned out, FASB and accounting integrity in general would play major roles in the recession-inducing scandals of 2001 and later in the Panic of 2008 and its aftermath.

At the Charlotte Observer in the 1990s, we were focused on the banking takeovers and consolidation being led by NationsBank/Bank of America and First Union/Wachovia. The banking reporters did an excellent job of illuminating the losers in these deals, as well as never being beaten by the big national papers on breaking news of a new one. But amid all this whirl, the reporters would talk about the changing capital markets. It seemed like important but dry stuff. I should have pushed to get ahead of reporting on the shadow banking industry that would do so much damage later. We did question the safety and soundness of such large, integrated financial institutions. But I should have encouraged deeper digging. And when I learned that FDIC regulators were being taught about financial derivatives — the kind that would nearly destroy the world economy — by the hometown banks, I should have dropped everything to make this a major project.

So even when you try your best, the speed and complexity of companies and markets can speed by. But remember, we’re not passengers. We’re the traffic cops.

 

 

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Covering a great divergence – and other defining issues of our time

By on Apr 24, 2013 in Economy, Featured, Jon Talton, Story ideas

What exactly is this we’re living though? I’ve been covering business and the economy since 1984 and have never experienced anything like it. If you’re in a city such as Austin or Seattle, things are booming again. Other vast swaths of the nation are still hurting — March unemployment in Nevada was 9.7 percent. Indeed, the national rate of 7.6 percent would once have been considered a painful recession, not a recovery that is technically almost four years old.

Will work for bandwidth

'Will work for bandwidth.' Photo: Mr. Thomas

For several years before the collapse, I was writing about what I termed the Great Disruption, how our future was discontinuity, that the next 30 years would not be a continuation of the past three decades. This did not always endear me to advertisers or bosses. But the basics were: Climate change, a higher-cost energy future, hyper-complexity, globalization, a financialized American economy, the costs of uneven trade deals, technological disruption and the increasing carrying costs of 7 billion people on the planet.

I phrased it different ways to different audiences, but you get the point: Disruption. I am not the brightest bulb in the knife drawer; anyone paying attention could see these storms coming.

Now, we can quibble about the details of how my predictions turned out. For example, hasn’t fracking and the so-called shale boom ended worries about U.S. oil? Perhaps — but they are dependent on higher energy prices, which present a ceiling that recovery keeps bumping against. It has added little to U.S. economic growth, at least so far.  Oh, and even if the fossil fuel supplies turn out to be as abundant as boosters claim, we still cook the planet. And climate change is not some hippy dippy thing that will only affect poor people in developing nations. It will bring huge economic costs everywhere, an area that has barely been covered by the traditional media.

Meanwhile, the forces of discontinuity keep growing — yet another problem facing the unemployed is the rise of a new wave of sophisticated robots. American households lost on average 40 percent of their wealth in the recession. Huge numbers of baby boomers facing retirement don’t have enough saved. American households are still carrying large debt burdens — and to that can be added the student debt bubble. Students graduating with this burden are generally facing a job market that pays less than was the case 30 years ago, setting a trajectory that will make it very difficult for them to ever catch up.

Polls show people fearful that their children will face lower living standards than they enjoyed, and the economics back this up. Inequality is the worst since the 1920s, and even the 1890s, and economic mobility has stagnated. Then there is the provocative paper by Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon, arguing that a combination of factors, including lack of new leapfrog technological revolutions, portends decades of very slow growth.

This is the landscape that business journalists are working in, whether they want to or not.

One striking feature today is a great divergence, too. For example, the large corporations that entered the recession in fairly good shape are doing better than ever. Corporate profits are at a record. But this isn’t translating into hiring. Not only that, but smaller businesses are still struggling. Many still can’t get lending. They face the power of Amazon.com and highly consolidated industries.

The divide is certainly true of metropolitan areas: Some are almost back to their pre-recession performance, while others continue to struggle and may never recover their losses. And it’s the case with individuals, some doing very well, many at least hanging on to jobs even if the pay is stagnant, but a large number are among the long-term unemployed or other cohorts being left behind. Another big one: A record Dow amid very high unemployment and poor income growth for most Americans.

Not every business story can cover these issues, but they are the defining ones of our time. The stresses and fractures we’ve experienced in recent years have been years in the making. Finding “solutions” may be beyond us. Even intelligent responses seem beyond the capacity of a paralyzed political situation. All we can do is tell the stories and write the leading edge of history for no ordinary times.

 

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Faith in what we do – especially as business journalists

By on Apr 18, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton

I was never afraid of the Internet.

Stop the Presses

Humphrey Bogart in Deadline - U.S.A.

I was at the Charlotte Observer when the Charlotte.com site was launched, and much gnashing of teeth and tearing of garments happened at this newspaper known for its careful, writerly approach. Should we put up stories before they appeared in the physical paper, even for breaking news? Should they go through the assigning desk and copy desk before they went to the Web? I know all this sounds quaint, now. It wasn’t so long ago. Being in charge of business news, I was able to take a different path: We put up breaking business news as it happened. If something was wrong or the story advanced, we could press a key and update the story. I also started a daily stock-market “Web log” called Shareholder Nation. It included a haiku, just for goofy fun, which survives today on my Seattle Times blog.

Perhaps my mindset came from starting out at PM newspapers. They tended to be faster-moving and aggressive than the stately slow supertankers of morning papers. If a story changed while the presses were running, we would update it on a roll change (quaint, as I say). So when I look at a blog such as the Huffington Post, I’ve never been intimidated, much less felt that here was a New Order of the Ages. HuffPo reminds me of the kick-ass PM newspapers where I first learned my craft.

A few years ago, I wrote about some of the underlying causes of the crisis in newspapers. If anything, they have accelerated, failing to learn from the all-important Rule of Holes (“when in a hole, stop digging). I certainly don’t have a solution to the Holy Grail search for a “new business model.” When an industry has been predicated on monopolies bringing in 30 percent-plus profit margins, that’s a disaster waiting to happen and it is culturally unable to, as Steve Jobs put it, “think different.” What I would push back against is the persistent habit of blaming journalists for what are primarily blunders on the part of the business side.

The result is that too many of us don’t believe in our calling any more. I believe the moves we have in our DNA are precisely the ones required whether information is delivered on dead trees or digitally. Knowing the right questions. Skepticism. The ability to multitask under pressure. Being quick studies. Having street smarts. Holding to a code that demands accuracy and fairness. Knowing you can never freeze. And, especially in business journalism, having become specialists in a fields where high-end intelligence is valuable.

The tools of our craft are changing, but they only allow us to punch above our weight. (Yes, I wish I had a staff of researchers, graphic artists and propeller heads like Ezra Klein does on Wonkblog). Maybe people’s minds are being rewired in ways that don’t favor long reads and traditional journalism. If so, too bad for our democracy and civilization. But, I remember conversations I have with people who say, “My kids don’t read the paper.” My response: “That’s so odd, because you don’t look like someone who is raising stupid children.” When they give me a look of hostility of a cow watching a train pass, I add: “The people who will give your children jobs, tell them what to do and create the society in which they live as adults will read real journalism, however it’s delivered. I hope your children have that edge, too.”

Yes, I have to rein in the pedant hiding inside me.

I don’t think it was any accident that the run-up to the housing collapse and Great Recession, along with all the economic pathologies that haunt us still, happened unimpeded at exactly the same time that the roof was falling in on newspapers. Uninformed people plugged into the matrix of being “consumers” and watching 35 hours of television a week make a good feeding ground for hustlers.

So I have faith in what we do, particularly as business journalists covering the most powerful entities and explaining the most consequential forces and events affecting “real people.” We have the moves, even if for many they are calcified. Don’t forget it.

 

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When they won’t talk

By on Apr 11, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton

I frequently hear a common complaint from reporters: “The company (or chief executive) won’t talk. All to often, the reporter’s response is to go away and pick low-hanging fruit. This is exactly the way corporations want it. They want to control the news. They want to manage their “message.” Our duty, informing employees, shareholders and community stakeholders of the truth, is to fight this for all we’re worth.

I’ve never forgotten letters and calls I used to get from General Motors employees when I worked at the Dayton Daily News: “If it wasn’t for your newspaper, I wouldn’t know what’s really going on.”

When they won’t talk, they’re a target. Not for cheap shots or vendettas, but for something far more dangerous: Journalism. As a business editor, one of my axioms was that most of the people and outfits that wanted to be in the newspaper didn’t deserve to be, and the one’s that didn’t want to be covered urgently needed it. It rarely steered me wrong.

More than once, when I was brought in to turn around or up the game of a business section, I unleashed reporters to administer what I called “an object lesson” to a company that had previously been uncooperative. Using everything in the toolbox, we would report frequently on the company, giving it a chance to comment, running the story if the flacks refused. And saying so (“declined to comment”). This, of course, is devastating, just like the executive who says “no comment” should be waving a red flag before all journalists. I remember one case where we ran a story every day about a major company — each one newsworthy. After five days, the CEO called me and said, “I surrender.” After that, the company cooperated.

The good news is that today, thanks to the Internet, there are more resources than ever to find out information about companies and businesspeople. In addition to using SEC documents, reporters can get otherwise ungettable quotes from elusive CEOs by listening in on analysts calls — some of the stars also give TED talks. Analyst reports are widely available. Visit the court dockets. Read the trade journals and blogs. Learn about the industry so you can gauge how this particular company is really doing. Then there are the good old Jimmy Gentry standbys: Talk to analysts, employees, former employees, vendors and competitors (accounting, of course, for their biases). If the CEO is giving a talk at Rotary, show up and stick around afterward. And don’t forget critical thinking and skepticism — this can allow you to take something already reported, perhaps in an obscure place, and spin it forward with more value-added journalism. This site is full of resources that can allow you to learn more about a company and its industry.

The task is easier with public companies, but private companies can’t completely hide, either.

And don’t forget to look into how companies and oligarchs buy and use political power. One great resource is the Open Secrets site, which tracks money in politics. Another is Subsidy Tracker, which looks at the handouts taxpayers are giving to companies.

Don’t approach the ones that refuse to cooperate — or those that want to rigidly keep you on their message — with a chip on your shoulder. They deserve an extra dose of fairness, context and completeness. But often these corporations and individuals are making the biggest news. Readers just don’t know it — unless we step up.

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Don’t be a tool: The danger of group think

By on Apr 03, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton

If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out — Anonymous

LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote an important piece last month headlined, “How Apple invites facile analysis.” It’s worth a careful read by every business journalist, whether you’re a reporter, editor or commentator, whether you cover technology or not. I don’t want to do an injustice by simplifying his careful and nuanced argument. But one critical lesson is how easily we can get swept up in a herd mentality.

He writes:

…the sentiment and stock action related to Apple offer a perfect study in how conjecture and misunderstanding can trump actual knowledge when it comes to evaluating a company. When the company is as much the focus of worldwide attention and as uncommunicative about its own plans as Apple, the effect is even sharper.

Yes, Apple is perfect, but the danger of group think is apparent on every beat. Remember when Jack Welch was the greatest chief executive in history? When the traditional business cycle was gone, trumped by technology? When price-to-earnings ratios didn’t matter and, indeed, actual earnings were irrelevant — or so it seemed at the time. You remember the housing bubble, and before that the dot-com bubble and those Amazing Corporate Miracles such as Enron, HealthSouth and Tyco.

red flower in a field of yellow flowers

Photo: Flickr user iamrecovering

There are quite a few honorable exceptions, but our profession hasn’t covered itself with glory on these and numerous other stories. Our failings have been particularly acute as disasters were gathering, when more skeptical, careful reporting might have helped avoid the worst. We’re not flacks or cheerleaders or publicists. We serve the public trust and owe our readers nothing less than the best available version of the truth at that moment — and the willingness to ask loads of questions. This is a tough profession, demanding discipline, constant learning — and a certain monasticism, despite all the cant a few years ago about how journalists should be more involved in, and reflective of, “the community.”

I also understand the many traps. Some corporate owners want “positive news” and degrade the years of training and seasoning it takes to make a capable financial journalist. “Don’t be such a gloomy Gus…why are you always to negative,” can even come from friends and family. The public relations field is more sophisticated than ever before. Technology has sped up reaction times, and too often reporters and editors must become instant experts. Corporations lean on publishers and buy academics. Many advocacy groups masquerade as “think tanks,” but don’t actually provide reliable information. Critical thinking has been diminished. Meanwhile, all across the culture: Sell, sell, sell, always be selling. And the media can be the biggest herd of all. The federal debt and deficit are the biggest immediate crisis we face, right? Actually, no, based on economic metrics and much research. But much of the media would have you believe otherwise.

So be wary. Mistrust the conventional wisdom. Ask a lot of questions of many sources, and always consider their potential biases. Challenge assumptions, especially when everything seems to be going great or terrible (.e.g Apple), based on the herd. Beware of “confirmation bias,” where you seek out the information that only fits your thesis. Never do a single-source story. Dig deeper. Peel back the onion. None of this is brain surgery.

So why do we keep getting punked?

 

 

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The Wild West of the comments zone

By on Mar 27, 2013 in Best Practices, Featured, Jon Talton

I’ve been blogging since 1998, but things changed in the 2000s when newspapers started allowing readers to comment. It introduced an entirely new dynamic — and a challenge for journalists.

Jon Talton Arizona Republic columnist

Comments have been closed on Talton's Arizona Republic columns, but feel free to leave one here.

At the Arizona Republic, I was the columnist who told unpleasant truths about Arizona’s economy, history and politics, including calling the housing crash before it happened. For seven years, some very powerful people demanded that I be fired or silenced. Publisher Sue Clark-Johnson stood behind me. Once I started blogging, it attracted the most vicious trolls. The online staff at azcentral were unable to block the worst offenders — the ones offering nothing but ad hominem attacks and even threats. I found this odd, considering that in running my personal blog, Rogue Columnist, which still focuses on Phoenix, I am able to stop trolls cold. But nevermind that. The experience was nasty and it made blogging difficult. One, who went by the handle “Zbig,” openly said his goal was to shut down my blog (he’s never had the guts to come to Rogue).

Readers had changed. I attribute it to the influence of talk radio and Fox “News.” Civility was largely gone from the self-selecting cohort of attackers. They had their talking points and closed-loop of ideology. When I would tell these stories, a rational person would respond, “Why would anyone give death threats to an economic columnist?!” True, but part of the enterprise of the right-wing — and sometimes other special interest groups — there’s an effort to silence dissenting voices. To get them fired, if possible, an especially dark hope given the state of the economy.

Facebook Connect commentsAt the Seattle Times, things were different at first. Comments are allowed on both stories and blogs, and in addition to my economics column, I blog five days a week. At first, everyone was incredibly civil, even those disagreeing. After awhile, the trolls appeared, although the online people were able to remove the most offensive comments. Some are fun. My favorite: “Talton your an idiot.” And one is almost always called a SOCIALIST in capital letters, even though the commenters usually don’t know what SOCIALISM is.

As a columnist, my job necessarily provokes. It goes with the territory. If you can’t stand the heat, etc. But reporters have asked me about the comments. Many of them are virgins to this Wild West of the Internet and take the attacks very personally. My advice: Unless you have a thick skin and nothing else to do, don’t read them. It’s just unnecessary brain damage. Someone with useful information will email you. The commenters can claim to be anyone, from anywhere. I have heard, but have yet to prove, that some are actually paid to comment on certain topics at papers around the country — the tone certainly has a sameness to it.

If we were smart as an industry, we would set up an iTunes-like system that would ding commenters 99 cents per comment, so effortlessly that the comments field would become a profit center.

Comments on news sites: Somebody call a wahmbulance

News websites use Facebook login to deter abusive comments.

There are exceptions about reading comments, at least in Seattle. Stories and columns about Boeing invariably bring some very intelligent, insightful and even newsworthy responses amid the name-calling and tired bromides. This can also be true of Microsoft — I even invited reader comments about why CEO Steve Ballmer is so personally hated, when he is hardly the caliber of some odious and controversial moguls I have covered. Here, the comments field can be very useful to a journalist. But it depends on the story and having a highly educated and engaged readership such as one finds in Seattle.

Since the Republic erected a paywall and required commenters to register on Facebook, the comments section has settled way down, even on hot-button stories such as those concerning immigration. The Times is headed to a paywall, as well, and we’ll see how that changes the comments here. It is gratifying to do a column and get more than 500 comments, as happened to me recently. Part of my job, after all, is to start conversations. But did I read them? No.

 

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Mastering the Difficult Conversation

By on Mar 21, 2013 in Career tips, Featured, Jon Talton

Sometime between your first assignment and your retirement party — or when your newspaper closes — you will have to become a master of the Difficult Conversation.

Umpires and coach

Deciphering the difficult conversations between umpire and coach may give you practice for the newsroom. Photo: Andrew Malone

It can take many forms and handling it well doesn’t come naturally. Young people are naturally defensive. And when I was coming up, journalism was a haven for misfits: Creative people, passionate do-gooders, few of whom were masters of emotional intelligence. However, getting this seemingly small thing right will be an invaluable part of your toolbox. Difficult Conversations more commonly confront business journalists. We write about the messy business of making and spending money. About the rich and powerful and, oftentimes, secretive. Our work can move a stock price or put a mogul in jail.

One common Difficult Conversation begins when a source calls demanding a “retraction.” What he or she usually means is a correction. The most important thing is to stay calm, “run frosty,” as the former Vietnam combat medics who trained me as an EMT taught me. “Tell me more,” you say. Immediately begin to take notes. Listen more than you talk. People want to believe they have been heard. I can’t count the number of lawsuits I’ve headed off by having a civil conversation with an angry source or CEO demanding “a retraction.” Find out what was factually wrong in the story. If it was, get it right and run a correction immediately. Read the draft correction back to make sure it’s right, so you don’t have to correct the correction.

More often, the callers are angry about the “tone” or “spin” of the story. They may deny saying things that you have in your notes. Listen and repeat key phrases back to them — that “being heard” thing, again. Be willing to explain your reporting without compromising sources. Let them know you don’t “spin,” and you are out to be accurate, fair, and as much as space allows, complete. Be willing to discuss their complaint with the editor. A clarification might be in order. More often, not. Let them know they can write a letter to the editor or pitch an op-ed, and offer to walk it through the process.

Of course, if the person starts threatening a lawsuit, end the conversation cordially and say you’ll have to talk to your editor (and then — unsaid — unchain the newspaper’s lawyers). Go no further in this talk.

Sometimes all this won’t ease the anger. Most times it does.

Another Difficult Conversation can be getting feedback from a boss that you think is unfair. You feel sandbagged. Again, keep calm (or, as the motto of Ivar’s seafood in Seattle would have it, “Keep Clam”). Don’t react. Be aware of the tone of your voice and body language. Listen to what the editor is saying and say nothing at first. Take notes if you need to. Then ask questions if clarification is needed. Repeat key phrases so the editor feels as if he or she has been heard. Try to hone in on the real problem so you can learn not to do it again. Sometimes the problem is obvious, often not. If you feel the need to explain yourself, keep it short, focus on the issue, on facts and specific performance. Remember that editors are often caught between the demands of their direct reports and the often conflicting diktats of the managers above them. Try to come away with action points that address the issue. And Keep Clam.

Boy pointing and chatting

Acting like a 2-year-old is not recommended during difficult conversations. Photo: Paul Meidinger

If you land in management yourself, being a virtuoso of the Difficult Conversation is even more important. Lay out the specific performance issue (be very specific) and then listen. Act as if you have all the time in the world. Speak back key phrases the employee used — they want to feel heard, remember. If some issues they raise have merit, incorporate them into your approach. Be prepared for tears or angry oaths. Let things calm down. Next, explain how the performance issue hurts both the employee and the overall department, the newspaper and its effectiveness, competitiveness or credibility. Just as above, watch your tone and body language. And again listen. If this is a problem employee, don’t be baited. More often than not, you’ll both be headed to a solution. Often you’ll lead the way, laying out your specific expectations for the future. Does the employee have questions? Answer them. Finally — and I am in debt to my Zenger Miller training for much of this — wrap up with a “so we agree that in the future you will” summation of the conversation. Don’t be afraid to sprinkle in one or two things the employee does well, too. It not only can soften the blow and open the mind, but be part of the full feedback employees should regularly expect.

It only took me about 20 years to become a master of the Difficult Conversation. My hope (not “hopefully” — gah!) is this will help you get there much sooner.

 

 
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