It’s called insurance, but this beat is really about people and the bad things that they hope won’t happen. Paige St. John, from the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, explains ways to approach the beat with extra skepticism and very good sources.
After being assigned to write about the bankruptcy of a life insurance company early on in his career, David Heath found himself far from excited. Thinking it would be the dullest story he’d ever have to do, Heath wasn’t expecting such a relatively straightforward, uninteresting topic to become his first of many investigative stories. Turned out there [...]
With the stock market posting its best first-quarter gain in more than a decade, many of the 100 million or so households that didn’t win the Mega Millions jackpot last week may be getting up the nerve to take a fresh look at their retirement account statements. And people without much to spare for long-term [...]
With historic legal arguments getting underway today before the Supreme Court of the United States, health care reform is going to be in the headlines again. The controversial Patient Care and Affordability Act of 2010 is being challenged on the basis that the individual mandate – the requirement that all citizens carry health insurance or [...]
Mother Nature seems to be a bit confused this week, dishing up snow in Arizona and 80-degree temps in Michigan and Ohio, much to the woe of snowbirds who shiver while their stay-put counterparts bask in warmth and early-blooming spring bulbs. With several batches of tornados already, and new storms whippng across the central plains — [...]
Short as it is, February is jammed with serious, silly and seasonal events that make great pegs for business and economy stories. I’ve posted about some of them, like Black History Month and next weeks’ Westminster Kennel Club dog show. But there’s so much more going on in the next 20 days that crafty business [...]
Hard to believe it’s been 18 months since President Obama signed financial regulatory overhaul into the law that was prompted by the collapse and/or near collapse of what’s now known as America’s too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Pundits, critics and observers differ on the need for such legislation and now, whether it’s made our economy safer from [...]
Well, this has to be some kind of a record: An Italian site is selling T-shirts emblazoned with the terse command “Vada a bordo, cazzo!” issued by the Italian Coast Guard official fast earning fame for his fire-and-brimstone rebukes to Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino. By some web accounts, that command translates roughly to “Get [...]
According to Swiss Re, natural disasters from the Japanese tsunami to the New Zealand earthquake to various floods, tornadoes and other weather havoc wrought — in addition to human death and tragedy — an estimated $350 billion worth of material damage this year — the most ever.
A couple of developments and year-end issues prompt health-care-related story ideas. And if that’s not your beat, consider reading on anyway; sometimes technology, workplace, small business, personal finance and other ties develop from the main issues. Insurance exchanges. The Department of Health and Human Services just awarded another $220 million in grants to help states [...]
