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.

Chairs will also contribute to this site, collaborate on research and make presentations at Reynolds Business Journalism Week each January. The level of sophistication required of today’s business journalists in print, online and broadcast dictates this combined effort by seasoned professionals. Money affects everyone, with economic meltdowns, corporate fraud and changing technologies inevitable components of our present and future. The Reynolds business journalism chairs are committed to helping assure that accuracy, fairness and sophistication are important considerations in all business coverage.

ANDREW LECKEY

Andrew Leckey was named President of the Reynolds Center and the Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications in spring 2009. His role includes coordination of cooperative work of the chairs. As first Director of the Reynolds Center in 2003, he launched its daylong workshops, online seminars and Barlett & Steele Awards.

Leckey is a long-time syndicated investment columnist for the Chicago Tribune, former CNBC anchor and author or editor of 10 financial books. He received National Association of Investors Corporation’s “Distinguished Award in Investment Education” and was first Director of the Bloomberg Business Journalism Program at University of California, Berkeley. He is a former Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism and serves on its advisory board. He is frequently interviewed on business journalism topics, most recently by The New York Times, The Guardian in the United Kingdom, Newsweek, “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS and China’s CC-TV. He has lectured on business journalism in China and Russia.

Andrew Leckey articles:

• Foreign languages are essential for global reporting
• Covering the recovering: It’s a messy business

• From Beijing to Hong Kong: Understanding the world’s economic scene

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. She assumed her position in the summer of 2001 and started the concentration in business journalism, bridging the college’s journalism department and the Williams School of Commerce.

Luecke had a 26-year career in daily newspapers and most recently served as editor and senior vice president of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. She also held various editing and reporting positions at The Hartford Courant, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, and the Louisville Times. During her career, she was supervising editor of two projects recognized with Pulitzer Prizes. She was also a Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia University.

Luecke remains active in the American Society of Newspaper Editors and will chair its education committee in 2009. She currently chairs the Accrediting Committee for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

Pam Luecke’s articles:

• Tips for the accidental financial journalist
• Retirees, bonds, credit cards are good angles as interest rates begin to turn
• Data, experts, a good angle can drive foreign trade coverage
• 10 ways to sneak business concepts into a journalism curriculum

Randall Smith was named Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia in summer 2009. His 30-year career at The Kansas City Star began in 1979, where worked on both the news and business sides. Smith started as a copy editor, rising to the positions of business editor and deputy managing editor, and most recently, to director of strategic development. Smith is a former president of the Society of American Business Writers and Editors (SABEW) and a recipient of the organization’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

Smith played a major role in conceiving and raising money for the School’s SABEW endowed chair. He is the vice chair and first non-family member of the board of the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships. The author of the book “A Kenyan Journey,” Smith has lectured to classes in China, Africa and the U.S. Active in diversity hiring programs, he played a key role in Knight Ridder’s Rotating Internship Program, which placed more than 250 journalists into newspapers.

Randall Smith’s articles:

• A company’s culture is impossible to fake
• How do you dig into an international story from Topeka
• Business journalists need to keep an eye on lagging indicators
• Be prepared if journalism jobs rebound with the economy
• How e-reader-makers are trying to catch up with consumer demand and industry need
• Paying attention, taking action before journalism’s iceberg melts
• Forget the soothsayers. Tools to analyze the economy yourself.
• Innovations in teaching journalism innovation

Alan Deutschman was named Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, in September 2010.

Deutschman, 45, was Fortune’s Silicon Valley bureau chief from 1992-95. He wrote about the valley and other subjects for GQ, New York Magazine, Fast Company and Vanity Fair. One of Deutschman’s four books, “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs,” was about Silicon Valley, and he is at work on a major new book about the valley. Deutschman also has written for TheDailyBeast.com and for Salon.com.

Deutschman will teach business and other journalism courses beginning in January 2011, develop a program in business journalism and research contemporary issues in the subject. Some of the courses will emphasize the coming “green economy” because of its importance to Nevada.

Alan Deutschman’s articles:

• The future of journalism: Endless reinvention, or ‘a bit more Miles Davis’
• Will future journalists have the benefit of learning from the ‘old pros’?