Rosland Gammon is a former business journalist turned college instructor. Her newsroom experience includes reporting for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and reporting and editing at Bloomberg News. Gammon currently teaches communications at Alverno College in Milwaukee. Follow her daily posts. | E-mail: Rosland Gammon
Reading John Fuquay’s piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about AMR Corp.’s pensions gave me flashbacks to my days of covering bankruptcy at Bloomberg News. His article helps readers understand why AMR’s projections of its pension obligations are 42 percent less than the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s calculations. Pensions aren’t the easiest topics to decipher, [...]
Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn of the St. Cloud Times used empty lots to illustrate how the recession stalled new housing developments in a three-part series. Through their reporting, they found their three-county area had 12,000 empty lots. In Avon, a city near St. Cloud, the recession thwarted plans for two developments. In part two, [...]
Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn produced a great three-part series called “Gambling on Growth” for the St. Cloud Times using empty lots to show the recession’s impact on new housing developments. The series won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists last year. Through their reporting, they [...]
After years of covering a beat, earnings stories can lose their appeal for some reporters. Many reporters fall into a “plug and play” role. But that’s not what Scott Malone of Reuters did in his piece about Oshkosh Corp. Here the numbers aren’t as important as company investor Carl Icahn’s influence. He writes: “Icahn, who [...]
Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money produced an Atlantic article and a two-part segment for Planet Money looking at the loss of jobs for unskilled workers and the growing demand for skilled workers. He explored the issue through Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run maker of replacement parts for car engines. In yesterday’s post, Adam offered tips [...]
Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money set out to look at the state of unskilled workers in America. Specifically, he wanted to focus on the loss of jobs for unskilled workers and the growing demand for skilled workers. “This struck me as a very serious issue, it means that, for many Americans, the American dream [...]
I don’t usually blog about blogs, but I liked a post by Micheline Maynard, a Forbes contributor and senior editor of Changing Gears. | Editor’s note: Micki Maynard also wrote the Reynolds Center’s Beat Basics package on Manufacturing. In the Changing Gears post that caught my eye, she wrote about Austin, Texas, looking to boost its [...]
Josh Nathan-Kazis of the Jewish Daily Forward looked into two charities, Kars4Kids and Oorah Inc., and found that less than 25 percent of the $29 million they collected in 2010 was spent on providing programs. The organizations collect donated cars for their mission to support Orthodox outreach to non-Orthodox Jews. Josh also found that Kars4Kids spent $8.3 million on advertising in 2010.
Susan Berfield of Bloomberg Businessweek produced a well-researched and -written piece covering a “tale of economic desperation” in Moberly, Mo. She details the town’s relationship with “a short, chubby, well-dressed executive from Beverly Hills named Bruce Cole.” His company, Mamtek, planned to build an artificial-sweetener plant that would employ 612. Excited city officials dove into the deal within three weeks of meeting him and approved $39 million in municipal bonds for the company.
