Nearly every day, in board rooms all over America, executives and their investor relations staff huddle around a speaker phone and put their best collective face on the financial figures they have just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

RIM CEO Jim Balsillie was excited about the not-so-popular Blackberry PlayBook during a 2011 earnings call.

With the advent of earnings season, when dozens of such calls are taking place each day, it’s a good time to reflect on the value of this business communication ritual for business journalists.

And “ritual” is the correct word for “the quarterly earnings conference call.” These events have an eerie sameness if you listen to enough of them. Despite their best efforts to sound conversational, executives often come across as stilted or nervous as they read their carefully prepared scripts. Some even have scripts for anticipated questions and have gone through rehearsals with other staff posing as pesky analysts. Investor relations professionals view earnings calls as one of the critical events of their year, so they leave little to chance. (On the website “Inside Investor Relations,” one article details “30 tips for better conference calls,” including “avoid excessive exuberance.”)

The primary audience for an earnings call are the analysts who follow the company for investment banks and institutional investors; these folks are invited not only to listen to the call but also to ask questions at the end of the presentation. A moderator calls on the speakers one by one, so the exchange is far from free-wheeling. But an earnings call can still be mildly revelatory and, thanks to a regulation adopted by the SEC in 2000, anyone else can listen in, including small investors, competitors and journalists.

Regulation Fair Disclosure, or Reg FD, arose to ensure that everyone is able to receive material information about a company at the same time. Prior to its existence, companies might disclose important information selectively in private sessions with analysts or big investors, a practice that put smaller investors at a disadvantage.

If you are a journalist following a particular company, listening in on a conference call should be part of your regular beat responsibilities, just like monitoring SEC filings and insider stock trades. Sure, it’s unlikely that anything unexpected will happen, but you never know.

Perhaps the most infamous – and newsworthy – earnings conference call in history took place in the spring of 2001, when Jeffrey Skilling, then CEO of Enron, responded to a question from a persistent analyst with the epithet, “We appreciate it…a–hole.” Several years later, Al Lord, CEO of Sallie Mae, may have topped Skilling’s gaffe when he ended a conference call by muttering “Let’s get the – out of here.”

Although you are unlikely to hear something as colorful as an offhand expletive, the calls still have value for several reasons:

• You can learn what the company believes are most salient about its filings and develop some context about its strategies.
• You can get beyond the obvious in a quarterly earnings story and provide readers something of value that they are unlikely to seek out on their own.
• You can eavesdrop on concerns informed investors and analysts have about the company during the Q&A session.
• You can hear directly from top executives and quote them in your stories, even if these are people who will never return your call. Simply attribute the comment by saying something like, “the remark was made during the company’s fourth quarter conference call Tuesday.”
• If the executive is someone you plan to interview in the future, you can get a feel for his or her personality, even in a carefully scripted event.

Some executives take pains to be conversational and even jovial. Others are combative and prickly. Referring to a comment made in a conference call when you have that interview can be a good reporting habit. It conveys to the executive that you’ve done your homework.

Yahoo!'s Cutline column liveblogged News Corps' earnings call in August 2011. Photo: Yahoo!

The vast majority of publicly traded companies have conference calls. It’s easy to find out when they are scheduled by looking at a company’s website, usually under a tab labeled “investor relations.” Some make the time and date available a month or more in advance. Others wait until closer to the call. Many financial sites compile a calendar of upcoming calls, including Yahoo Finance, Marketwatch, Reuters, Seeking Alpha, Earningswhispers.com and Earnings.com.

To listen to a call real time, you often have to complete an online registration in advance via the company’s website. Then you just dial in at the appointed hour and listen. Some companies use technology that allows listeners to view charts and graphs on their computer screens as the call is taking place.

A call usually opens with a moderator or coordinator reading a disclaimer about “forward-looking statements.” Then the CEO typically has a few opening words about the quarter just ended and turns the microphone over to the chief financial officer.

Depending on the news and the company, other executives might be given a chance to elaborate on a particular development or strategy. Finally, the moderator will open the call to questions.

If you miss a company’s live call, don’t despair. A recording is usually archived for a month or so on the company’s website and at financial websites. Some archived recordings conveniently allow you to jump ahead in the call rather than listen to it linearly. Another time-saver is transcripts, many of which can be obtained free from seekingalpha.com; other services offer transcripts for a fee.

Be sure to check the provider’s linking or quotation policy before including information from a transcript in your reporting. And it’s a good practice to double check a quote in a transcript against the original recording, if that is still available. Like the conference call itself, the transcript probably comes with a disclaimer.

Pam Luecke was the initial Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism; her success at Washington and Lee University paving the way for the naming of subsequent business journalism chairs.

The Particulars

Instructor: Diana B. Henriques,
longtime financial writer
for The New York Times and
author of the best-seller,
“The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff
and the Death of Trust”

Location: Online

When: Noon and 4 p.m. ET
Aug. 13

Register for this free,
hourlong Webinar.

Photo by flickr user ElvertBarnes

All that reporting, all those documents, all those late nights. But you finally got that story!

Now, how do you get people to read it? In today’s congested media marketplace, storytelling is more important than ever – but too often, it is the neglected element in business journalism.

Ask too many business reporters about storytelling, and they’ll say, “Oh, yeah – I have an anecdotal lede.” In fact, great stories are built from the ground up, beginning with reporting techniques that empower you when it’s time to write and moving on to eye-opening tools borrowed from the worlds of screenwriting and suspense fiction.

In this Webinar, you will learn these techniques to tell great stories from Diana B. Henriques, longtime financial writer for The New York Times and the author of the best-seller, “The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust.”

Author Diana B. Henriques signs copies of "The Wizard of Lies." Photo by Michel Duarte

Sign up for this free Webinar.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

How to:

• Gather the telling details while chasing the story.
• Deepen your story with universal characters from folklore and myths.
• Use techniques from screenwriting and potboilers to strengthen your writing.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Diana B. Henriques became a contributing writer to The New York Times in December 2011, after more than two decades at the paper.

As a senior financial writer at The Times, she specialized in investigative reporting on white-collar crime, market regulation and corporate governance. She turned her coverage of Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme into a best-selling book, “The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust.”

She was part of a reporting team that was named a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 for its coverage of the aftermath of the Enron scandals. She was also a member of a team that won a 1999 Gerald Loeb Award for covering the near-collapse of  the hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management.

She was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005 for exposing the exploitation of American soldiers by financial services companies. For that series, she also received the George Polk Award, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the Worth Bingham Prize.

FIRST-TIME ATTENDEES

Check out our Technology Help Page for connectivity requirements, helpful tips and an instructional video on how to access Reynolds Center Webinars.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

This free Webinar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the Webinar or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

The Particulars

Instructor: Tami Luhby,
senior writer, CNNMoney

Location: Online

When: Noon or 4 p.m. ET
July 10

Register for this free,
one-hour Webinar.

Photo by flickr user Saad.Akhtar

Four years into producing stories on unemployment woes, you may be looking for new angles. The good news is that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a treasure trove of data that offer fresh insights on your local jobs market.

In this hourlong, live session you’ll learn where to find the local statistics to substantiate the trend stories you are seeing  — and find new ones. The Webinar will feature examples of how your colleagues have used BLS data to produce enterprising local stories.

Register for this free Webinar.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

You will learn how to use BLS numbers to find and analyze the following data:

• Unemployment: Dig deeper into the national unemployment figures and find stats on the jobless by age, industry, race and education level.
• Employment sectors: How many people work in leisure/hospitality or finance or in your area, and how has that changed over the past year, five years or 10 years?
• Wages: Find fun facts such as how average weekly wages have changed in your state or metro area. You can search for all employees or specific sectors.
• Hot jobs: What professions are the fastest-growing nationally? How many carpenter jobs will exist in 2018? How many registered nurses?
• Employment population ratio, percentage of population in the workforce: Find out why these two measures can be more telling than just the unemployment rate alone.

Note: You don’t need to have a familiarity with Excel spreadsheets to benefit from this training. However, much BLS data can be downloaded and analyzed in Excel.

Tami Luhby

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Tami Luhby is a senior writer at CNNMoney.com, where she covers the economy. Previously, she covered personal finance for Newsday. Before joining Newsday, she worked at Crain’s New York Business and American Banker. Luhby also teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, from which she graduated in 1997.

FIRST-TIME ATTENDEES

Check out our Technology Help Page for connectivity requirements, helpful tips and an instructional video on how to access Reynolds Center Webinars.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

This free Webinar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the Webinar or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

The Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism have been awarded by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism since 2007. They recognize the best in print and online investigative business journalism and are named after two-time Pulitzer Prize winners Don Barlett and Jim Steele.

Here are all of the previous winners:

2011

Gold: The Arizona Republic for “Public Pensions, A Soaring Burden” by Craig Harris. The series focused on questionable public-pension practices and their cost to taxpayers. The project, which involved 67 public-records requests, uncovered elected officials making more in retirement than when they were employed and pensions paid to convicted felons removed from office for official wrongdoing.

The winners of the 2011 Barlett & Steele Awards: (from left) Craig Harris, Michael J. Berens, Jim Steele, Raquel Rutledge and Rick Barrett.

Silver: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for “A Case of Shattered Trust” by Raquel Rutledge and Rick Barrett. The series revealed how a firm with a decade of serious regulatory violations of sanitary conditions was allowed to operate while the Food and Drug Administration did nothing. As a result of the stories, the FDA revealed the name of the bacterium that it found in the manufacturer’s contaminated alcohol wipes. Following a permanent federal injunction against the firm, the product is no longer manufactured.

Bronze: The Seattle Times for “Seniors for Sale” by Michael J. Berens. The series investigated the growing trend toward seniors being moved from nursing homes into less expensive “adult family homes.” The investigation uncovered more than 230 deaths that indicated neglect or abuse in these homes but were not reported to the state. (The bronze award was added in 2011.)

More on the 2011 winning articles.

Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism: 2011 Winners from Reynolds Center on Vimeo.

2010

Gold: Reuters for “Diagnosed with Breast Cancer, Dropped by Insurer” by Murray Waas, whose four-month investigation revealed that a giant health insurer had targeted policyholders recently diagnosed with breast cancer for aggressive investigations with the intent to cancel their policies. An exhaustive study of records, hearings and federal data, as well as dozens of interviews with experts, officials and patients led to the story.

Silver: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for “Side Effects: Money, Medicine and Patients” by John Fauber, whose stories uncovered conflicts of interest that can compromise a doctor’s judgment. An example was a surgeon receiving millions of dollars in royalties annually from a medical device company while serving as editor of a medical journal that published favorable research on the company’s projects.

More on the 2010 winning articles.

2010 Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Reporting from Reynolds Center on Vimeo.

From left: Don Barlett, Rob Barry, Matthew Haggman, Jim Steele and Andrew Leckey

2009

Gold: The Miami Herald for “Borrowers Betrayed” by Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman and Rob Barry, whose nine-month investigation and resulting series uncovered poor oversight by Florida mortgage regulators that permitted thousands of individuals with criminal records to conduct business in the state’s home loan industry.

Silver: Bloomberg Markets for “AARP’s Stealth Fees” by Gary Cohn and Darrell Preston, who found through public documents and scores of interviews, that the world’s largest organization for seniors collects hundreds of millions of dollars annually from insurers who pay for AARP’s endorsement of their policies.

More on the 2009 winning articles.

2008

Gold: BusinessWeek for “Prisoners of Debt” by Robert Berner, Keith Epstein, Brian Grow and Geri Smith, who revealed how large financial firms regularly collaborate with doctors and hospitals to turn unpaid medical bills into high-interest consumer debt.

Silver: The Seattle Times for “The Favor Factory” by Hal Bernton and David Heath, who uncovered thousands of purchases that the U.S. Congress has forced the military to make in recent years, including a $4.5 million Navy vessel that sits unused by a Seattle pier.

More on the 2008 winning articles.

2007 Gold Award recipient Walt Bogdanich

2007

Gold: The New York Times for “A Toxic Pipeline” by Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker, who documented China’s role in supplying a counterfeit drug ingredient that killed at least 100 people in Panama and is suspected of killing thousands of others around the world.

Silver: The Baltimore Sun for “On Shaky Ground” by Fred Schulte and June Arney, who tracked how Baltimore’s arcane system of property fees initiated in Colonial times had evolved into a system of greed and lax oversight that preyed on the poor and elderly.

More on the 2007 winning articles.

Learn more on how to apply for the annual Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism.

The Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism are named for two-time Pulitzer Prize winners Don Barlett (left) and Jim Steele.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism celebrates the best in print and online investigative business journalism each year with the Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism.

Named for two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Don Barlett and Jim Steele, the awards were first given in 2007 and have featured a gold award of $5,000 and a silver prize of $2,000. Due to the growing number of exceptional submissions each year, a bronze award of $1,000 was added in 2011.

Entries for the 2012 award must have appeared in the year ending June 30, 2012. Each media outlet may submit no more than two entries. Submission deadline is Aug. 1, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism from Reynolds Center on Vimeo.

QUALITIES OF WINNING ENTRIES

“Don and I have an informal motto: ‘Tell the reader something they don’t know,’” said Steele. “It sounds simple. Yet a lot of journalism is a rehash of what people already know.”

Judges will be looking for investigative enterprise, strong business theme, elegant writing style, clarity and impact.

The awards are conferred in January during Reynolds Business Journalism Week at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix.

Read more about previous winners.

Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism: 2011 Winners from Reynolds Center on Vimeo.

HOW TO APPLY BY AUG. 1, 2012

Applications will be accepted only online and from editors or the contest coordinator designated by your news organization. Applicants will need to provide the following on the Barlett & Steele Contest Entry Form (coming soon).

• Contact information for the editor submitting the entry.
• An editor’s letter outlining any (a) obstacles in reporting, (b) reforms or impact after publication and (c) corrections or challenges to accuracy. It can be submitted as a Word document (.doc) or an Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf) file.
• Up to four articles, submitted as either an active URL or as a Word document (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf). A sidebar counts as an article.

Applicants do not have to file all elements in one sitting, but all elements must be uploaded before the application is submitted for consideration. The deadline for submission is 11:59 p.m. PT on Aug. 1, 2012.

Questions? Email Andrew Leckey, Reynolds Center president, or call 602-496-9186.

The competition is open to full-time journalists who want to attend the center’s free training before and during the conference, as well as other sessions. The center will present the following free training:

• Be a Better Business Watchdog — CAR for Business Journalists, a daylong, pre-conference workshop on March 15.
• How Not to Be Bamboozled by Local Economic Studies by Duke University Knight Chair Sarah Cohen on March 16.

To apply for a fellowship, please email by 11:59 p.m. PT Feb. 8 the following to Reynolds Executive Director Linda Austin, with “SABEW Fellowship” in the subject line:

• Name, position, media outlet (if affiliated with one), email address, phone number.
• A resume.
• A 500-word statement on how attending the Reynolds Center training sessions and the rest of the SABEW Conference would benefit your professional development. Please include in this statement how many times you have attended SABEW previously, whether you would be able to attend this year without this support, and what your plan is for sharing what you would learn with colleagues.

Winners of Reynolds Center fellowships will be notified by Feb. 15.

SABEW will be posting other conference scholarship opportunities on its website soon.

PROFESSORS SEMINARS

The business journalism professors discussed editors’ expectations and how to prepare students for the job market with Linda Austin, executive director of the Reynolds Center; Ilana Lowery of Phoenix Business Journal; Kathy Tulumello of The Arizona Republic; and Jodi Schneider of Bloomberg News.

Session Recordings

• What Editors Expect (panel discussion moderated by Andrew Leckey)
• Preparing for the Job Market — Schneider

Handout (PDF)

• Preparing for the Job Market – Schneider

STRICTLY FINANCIALS

The Strictly Financials Seminar fellows, who are professional journalists, studied financial markets with Gary Trennepohl of Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.

Session Recordings

• Financial Markets in 2012: Where are the Stories?
• Financial Markets in 2012: Where are the Stories? (continued)

Getting LinkedIn: Exploring LinkedIn for Business Journalists

PROFESSORS SEMINARS

The business journalism professors studied financial statements and common-size analysis with Jimmy Gentry of the University of Kansas.

Session Recordings

• Financial Statements I
• Financial Statements I and Securities and Exchange Commission Filings
• Financial Statements II
• Financial Statements II and Tools for Analysis: Common-size Analysis

Handouts (PDFs)

• Crocs – Financial Statements
• Kellogg – Financial Statements

STRICTLY FINANCIALS

The Strictly Financials Seminar fellows, who are professional journalists, studied financial statements and investments with Gary Trennepohl of Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.

Session Recordings

• Decoding Financial Statements
• Decoding Financial Statements (continued)
• Investing in a Time of Uncertainty

Handout (PDF)

• General Mills Financial Statements

The Particulars

When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 26

Where: The Chambers,
Brown-Lupton University Union,
Texas Christian University
Schieffer School of Journalism,
2901 Stadium Drive,
Fort Worth, Texas 76109

Instructors: Linda Austin,
executive director of the
Donald W. Reynolds National
Center for Business Journalism;
Carlie Kollath, business reporter,
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal;
Chris Roush, business journalism
professor at the University of
North Carolina; Doug Swanson,
investigative projects editor
for The Dallas Morning News;
Tommy Thomason, director of TCU’s
Texas Center for Community
Journalism

Co-sponsors: TCU’s Texas Center for
Community Journalism,
Texas Press Association

Hotels: Please see this list of nearby
hotels, including some that offer
discounts to TCU-affiliated guests.

Directions

Register for this free workshop.

“What isn’t business that we cover?” — Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor of The Canadian Record in Canadian, Texas

Photo by Flickr user Jo Naylor

That’s the thinking behind this free workshop designed to help community journalists cover local business better. Whether it’s finding stories in the municipal budget, the local economic-development agency or area small businesses, business and the economy are big news on Main Street, as well as Wall Street.

Geared to the needs of generalists on small staffs, this daylong training will arm you with resources, tips and ideas to bring more meaningful coverage of this important topic to your community.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is presenting this free workshop, which is hosted by the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism. The Reynolds Center is offering a similar workshop on April 13, hosted by the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Sign up for this free workshop on April 26.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How to find good stories in the business of government, including budgets and contracts,
• How to cover economic-development agencies at the state and local levels,
• How to find public information on private companies,
• How to find stories in publicly available databases, such as incorporation records and real estate transactions,
• How to find stories in small businesses, including 15 questions to ask for small-business profiles, and
• How to localize national and international stories for your audience.

YOUR INSTRUCTORS

Linda Austin

Linda Austin is the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. A former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader and reporter and editor at the Dallas Times Herald, she is also a former business editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Carlie Kollath

Carlie Kollath has been a business reporter at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, Miss., since 2007. She fell in love with journalism in high school and discovered business journalism while working for two trade publications in New York after graduating from the University of Mississippi.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism and the founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the University of North Carolina. He was named Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Teacher of the Year in 2009 and the North Carolina Professor of the Year in 2010. He is the author of Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication and co-author of The Financial Writer’s Stylebook: 1,100 Business Terms Defined and Rated.

Doug Swanson is the investigative projects editor at The Dallas Morning News. Before that, he was a projects reporter specializing in coverage of troubled state agencies and the financial misdeeds of state contractors. He has written five crime novels and is at work on a biography of Benny Binion, who started the World Series of Poker. Swanson is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and was a John S. Knight Fellow in Journalism at Stanford University.

Doug Swanson

Tommy Thomason is the founding director of Texas Christian University’s Center for Community Journalism. He was also the founding director of TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, which he led until starting the center in 2009. He has taught journalism at five universities and has been at TCU since 1984.

AGENDA: Uncovering the Best Local Business Stories

• 8:30-9 a.m. Registration and continental breakfast
• 9-9:20 a.m.  Welcome, introductions and why cover local business  –  Linda Austin
• 9:20-10:50 a.m. The Business of Government: Uncovering good stories in local government budgets, taxes and contracts  — Doug Swanson
  
• 10:50-11 a.m. Break
• 11 a.m.-noon Covering government incentives for economic development — Swanson
  

  Tommy Thomason

• Noon-1 p.m. What’s worked for you in covering local business?  A conversation over a boxed lunch (provided) on what’s worked for you. — Carlie Kollath and Tommy Thomason
• 1-2 p.m.  Uncovering public information on private companies — Chris Roush
  
• 2-3 p.m. Uncovering stories in data — Example: accessing and presenting incorporations data on your website — Roush 
• 3-3:15 p.m. Break
• 3:15-4 p.m. Uncovering stories in small businesses — 15 smart questions to ask for small-business profiles — Roush
• 4-5 p.m.  Localizing national/international business stories for your audience — Austin

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about participating. Signing up and not participating deprives someone else of the opportunity.

Those who successfully complete three regional workshops or online seminars presented by the Reynolds Center are eligible to receive a “Circle of Achievement” certificate.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the workshop or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.

The Particulars

When: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 13

Where: Room 248, Gatton
College of Business and Economics,
550 S. Limestone St.,
University of Kentucky,
Lexington, Ky. 40506

Instructors: Linda Austin,
executive director of the
Donald W. Reynolds National
Center for Business Journalism;
John Cheves, reporter,
Lexington Herald-Leader;
Carlie Kollath, business
reporter, Northeast Mississippi
Daily Journal; Chris Roush,
business journalism
professor at the
University of North Carolina.

Host: UK’s Institute for
Rural Journalism and
Community Issues

Partners: Hoosier State
Press Association, Kentucky Press
Association, Ohio Newspaper
Association

Nearby hotels:

SpringHill Suites by Marriott
Holiday Inn Express
University Inn
Crowne Plaza

Parking:
Available in paid garage
across Limestone Street
from Gatton College,
accessible by elevated walkway.

Register for this
free workshop.

Photo by Flickr user Jo Naylor

Whether it’s finding stories in the municipal budget, the local economic-development agency or area small businesses, business and the economy are big news on Main Street, as well as Wall Street.

Geared to the needs of generalists on small staffs, this daylong training will arm community journalists with resources, tips and ideas to bring more meaningful coverage of this important topic to their towns. As Laurie Ezzell Brown, editor of The Canadian Record in Canadian, Texas, said, “What isn’t business that we cover?”

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism is presenting this free workshop, which is hosted by UK’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. The Reynolds Center is offering a similar workshop on April 26, hosted by the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism in Fort Worth.

Sign up for this free workshop on April 13.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How to find good stories in the business of government, including budgets and contracts,
• How to cover economic-development agencies at the state and local levels,
• How to find public information on private companies,
• How to find stories in publicly available databases, such as incorporation records and real estate transactions,
• How to find stories in small businesses, including 15 questions to ask for small-business profiles, and
• How to localize national and international stories for your audience.

YOUR INSTRUCTORS

Linda Austin

Linda Austin is the executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. A former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader and reporter and editor at the Dallas Times Herald, she is also a former business editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Carlie Kollath

Carlie Kollath has been a business reporter at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, Miss., since 2007. She fell in love with journalism in high school and discovered business journalism while working for two trade publications in New York after graduating from the University of Mississippi.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism and the founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the University of North Carolina. He was named Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Teacher of the Year in 2009 and the North Carolina Professor of the Year in 2010. He is the author of Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication and co-author of The Financial Writer’s Stylebook: 1,100 Business Terms Defined and Rated.

John Cheves

John Cheves is an investigative reporter at the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, with a focus on government watchdog stories that track how taxpayer money is spent. He previously worked in the Herald-Leader’s Washington bureau and its statehouse bureau. His projects include a nationally published 2006 series, “The McConnell Machine,” examining $220 million in political donations collected by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and the favors that McConnell did for his biggest donors. Cheves is a 1993 graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

AGENDA: Uncovering the Best Local Business Stories

• 8:30-9 a.m. Registration and continental breakfast
• 9-9:20 a.m.  Welcome, introductions and why cover local business  –  Linda Austin
• 9:20-10:50 a.m. The Business of Government: Uncovering good stories in local government budgets, taxes and contracts  — John Cheves
  
• 10:50-11 a.m. Break
• 11 a.m.-noon Covering government incentives for economic development — Cheves
• Noon-1 p.m. What’s worked for you in covering local business?  A conversation over a boxed lunch (provided) on what’s worked for you. — Carlie Kollath
  
• 1-2 p.m.  Uncovering public information on private companies — Chris Roush
  
• 2-3 p.m. Uncovering stories in data — Example: accessing and presenting incorporations data on your website — Roush 
• 3-3:15 p.m. Break
• 3:15-4 p.m. Uncovering stories in small businesses — 15 smart questions to ask for small-business profiles — Roush
• 4-5 p.m.  Localizing national/international business stories for your audience — Austin

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about participating. Signing up and not participating deprives someone else of the opportunity.

Those who successfully complete three regional workshops or online seminars presented by the Reynolds Center are eligible to receive a “Circle of Achievement” certificate.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the workshop or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.