By Flickr William Warby

Rather overshadowed by news of the impending mega-billion Facebook IPO was an actual public offering earlier this week by casino operator Caesars Entertainment.

The gambling company’s small offering — less than 2 percent of iits shares went public — was snatched up and tradrs drove the initial price up by 70 percent the first day of trading, USA Today reports.   That sounds like upbeat news but in proof that investing news isn’t always what it seems, some analysts according to BusinessWeek posit that such a tiny offering is intended to let private investors in the casino company – which under its former name, Harrah’s Entertainment, was taken off the market in 2008 by private equity firms – cash in on demand artificially inflated by a limited number of shares.

The cynical take on the shares’ surge makes it tough to draw a conclusion about the demand for casino stocks.  But in light of the growing casino market nationwide, it makes sense to take a fresh look at gaming activity in your region and how revenue is dispersed throughout the economy. 

It’s also worthwhile – especially if you cover personal finance or public policy – the  irony of states and municipalities using what may be the most absolutely discretionary of all discretionary consumer spending to make up for losses in revenue from taxes on real property, taxes on income and other productive sectors.  I like a turn at the slot machines just as well as the next person, but find it somewhat sad that as state and local budgets are slashed due to declining residential property values, governments are looking to the proceeds from goofy games to prop up ailing budgets.  Detroit, for example, reportedly is considering a gaming surcharge to out-of-town winners. 

Fifty-ish miles south, in the Toledo area, conservative Ohio soon will succumb to the lure of the gambling parlor when the first of that state’s newly authorized casinos open.  Ohio isn’t alone among states hoping to reap benefits from humankind’s urge to wager, but according to a Federal Reserve study cited in this Kentucky.com article, casinos are no cure-all.   Especially intriguing is the notion that ‘every dollar dropped into a slot machine is a dollar not spent elsewhere.’ 

It might be time to explore that notion if you’re in a market anywhere near state-regulated or tribal gambling halls.  I have chatted with casino patrons, for example, who admit to spending all of their Social Security checks at casinos; some visit every day.  If they didn’t have the gambling outlet, would the money go to QVC, or bingo, or grandhcildren’s college funds?   Who knows, but it’s an interesting question to ask. 

Another good angle: What happens to unclaimed winnings?   For the uninitiated, most slot machines these days spew bar-coded tickets instead of jingling coins; the tickets can be cashed in via ATM-like machines or at an ever-dwindling number of cashier stations.  Or, they can be tucked into wallets and purses and forgotten.  It beats me how slot-machine systems that can track a player’s every move down to the split second can’t be bothered to credit an outstanding balance to a player’s slot account (I’m sure they could, if the casinos wanted to) but the tickets do expire.  State laws on what happens to the balance vary and you’ll turn up a very riveting little story if you ask about the fate of these unclaimed winnings.  (Check on the policies for lottery and horse/dog track winnings, as well.) 

Here’s a look at the Top 20 U.S. casino markets by revenue; the results may surprise you.

That’s a blow to a stumbling jobs market and a hit to consumer and worker confidence, though investors probably love the idea of trimming 20 percent of labor costs.  (There’s always a ‘who benefits?’ silver lining story somewhere…)

In 2011, tens of thousands of workers in the financial sector lost jobs, along with other big job cuts at companies like Pfizer, Cisco and Delta. While American Airlines is the first big job-cuts announcement of the year, it’s a sure bet it won’t be the last.

And with the New Year just under way, you might want to consider some sort of tracking feature — a blog, a standing graphic in your publication or online, or a monthly roundup — to chronicle mass layoffs this year in your region.   Seek out the pink-slipped workers and document their job searches, career retraining, personal finance challenges and other aspects of unemployment.  Joblessness and the mismatch between corporate expectations and what candidates have to offer is one of the most unexplored stories of this era, as I mentioned in a previous blog post about the so-called talent gap. 

Readers love longitudinal features that let a story unfold throughout the year, and they are great background for presenting ongoing economic data and statistics.  Why not give it a try this year?

Finding laid-off workers is easy; visit your area’s workforce commission, go to job fairs, ask financial advisers to refer clients, call executive recruiting firms, talk with local union leaders and consider soliciting reader stories through a blurb in the publication or online.

Meanwhile, bookmark this Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly mass layoffs report; it’s really a trove of data that slices mass layoff numbers by industry, occupation and by state.  (A mass layoff is one involving 50 or more workers.)  Perusing the report, it’s surprising how many events fall under radar screens; according to the BLS report there were 2,433 layoff events in December alone.  (Note that this report lists layoffs of any duration; it may be that some job losses recorded are not permanent; that’s an important distinction to make when ferreting out local events.) Contact the BLS and your state labor department for documentation about the employers reporting the job cuts.

And check out the federal labor department’s WARN pages — the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers to provide 60 days notice of plant closings and mass layoffs, among other provisions.  It’s another way to keep tabs on pending job cuts in your area.

By Photobucket user Chris Wendt

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 about the need for context when using anecdotes to illustrate the broader trends.

“I like to dig deeply into statistics and understand what economists know about trends,” Adam says. “Then I can choose an anecdote that exemplifies the point better.”

Adam also shared details about how he narrowed the myriad of options down to focusing on South Carolina.

Today’s Tip: Think systematically about where to focus a story.

In setting out to tell the story, Adam says he ruled out New York because of the major changes in the economy during the last 30 years. Then he thought of the Greenville-Spartanburg area in South Carolina, where textile mills had shifted their job requirements from low-skilled workers to highly skilled ones. “There were pretty good jobs for people with more training and skill, and not much for those without,” Adam says.

Adam Davidson

Once he had a location, he needed an industry, he says. He chose auto part manufacturers because of the competition with Chinese imports. He visited three auto parts plants to find a “decent” company “that wasn’t trying to squeeze every penny of profit, one that seemed to care about its employees,” he says. That’s when he landed at Standard Motor Products, which competes directly with China.

He wanted to find an employee at the company in a low-skilled position, which he defines as a job that takes less than a day to learn, he says. He also wanted to focus on someone with the ability to develop skills, but unable to go to school. Knowing he had a radio segment to produce, he also wanted someone who was talkative and open. After meeting a “few dozen Standard workers,” Madelyn “Maddie” Parlier stood out. She was “smart, open, so crystal clear about her condition in the world, her own bad choices, and her challenges,” he says. “I knew she’d play well on the radio and would be a great person to write about.”

By Duygu Ozen

Coming off a year with a welcome 10 percent increase in sales, the nation’s auto dealers are prepped for an even better 2012, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). 

Its “Top 3 factors why U.S. auto sales will increase in 2012″ suggests that aging autos, available credit and plenty of incentives from dealers and automakers will spur sales even more this year.  With the January tally of auto sales due out Wednesday and expected to show a 6-percent-plus increase, according to TheStreet.com, you might want to think about tracking sales for the year as a sort of local bellwether. 

Also, with the NADA’s annual convention about to kick off in Las Vegas later this week, you have a timely peg for checking in with dealer executives, industry lobbyists and other stakeholders about the state of auto retailing in your market.

Naturally car sales determine the fortunes of retail dealers, and that’s an important angle – especially when you factor in related businesses like service, detailing, accounting, transport of cars to and from dealers and other support services – in fact it might be instructive to ask a local dealer for an educational look at its accounts payable books, to get an idea of the myriad other firms that revolve around car sales.  Not to mention newspaper ad sales, and that’s always a tightrope of a topic for business journalists to cover. 

The NADA has plenty of informational material on its website, including a state-by-state look at how car sellers contribute to the local economy; you might want to browse around the site for other pertinent data and background.

One reason for the rosy sales outlook is pent-up demand; according to the Polk research firm, average vehicle age reached a record high in 2011 of 10.8 years.  But the annual decline in domestic vehicle population ended, with some 500,000 cars boosting the July 2011 ‘vehicles in operation’ number to 240.5 million.  Talk with auto mechanices, parts suppliers (Pep Boys just got snapped up by private equity for some $790 million), oil-change stations, car wash companies and detailers – any entity that helps keep old cars running – about what the aging fleet has meant to them and how they’ll be affected if predictions of sales jumps in 2012 hold true.   Again, this is a golden opportunity to start a longitudinal story – a mechanic’s blog, or monthly check-in with any related business about the ebb and flow of customers. 

Another angle: Who’s buying what in your region?  In addition to anecdotal reports from car salespersons, try your DMV for available registration records.  I poked around and the info seems to vary by state, but getting monthly records that reflect make, model, year and ZIP code seems like a reasonable FOIA request in most states.  Your readers would devour a monthly feature showing which neighborhoods are buying the silver Lexus vs. the bright green Ford Fiesta vs. the sexy ‘Imported from Detroit’ Chrysler semi-muscle cars.   Call the DMV and ask what records are available.

A screenshot from The Atlantic's "Making It in America." Photo by Dean Kaufman

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 is no longer a possibility,” Adam says. “I wanted to understand, from a business perspective, why it made sense to pay relatively high salaries to skilled workers, but not to pay relatively low salaries to unskilled workers.”

Adam explores the issue through Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-owned maker of replacement parts for car engines. The story became a 9,000-word article in The Atlantic, and a two-part segment for Planet Money.

For his Atlantic piece, he offers readers detailed information about workers. Of Madelyn “Maddie” Parlier, he writes:

“Maddie’s senior year started hopefully. She had finished most of her high-school requirements and was taking a few classes at nearby Tri-County Technical College. She planned to go to a four-year college after graduation, major in criminal justice, and become an animal-control officer. Around Christmas, she found out she was pregnant. She did finish school and, she’s proud to say, graduated with honors. “On my graduation, I was six months pregnant,” she says. “Six months.” The father and Maddie didn’t stay together after the birth, and Maddie couldn’t afford to pay for day care while she went to college, so she gave up on school and eventually got the best sort of job available to high-school graduates in the Greenville area: factory work.”

Adam Davidson

Today’s Tip: Don’t just shoot for the anecdote.

“Economists are often frustrated with us reporters because we’ll make a big deal about some single story without placing it in context,” Adam says. “I’ve always tried to understand the context deeply, and then find the anecdotal example that can illustrate the broader trends.”

The context Adam needed for this story was U.S. history.  In the past, people willing to work hard could improve their condition, but that changed in the last 30 years, he says. The story includes data to help readers understand the broader issue. For instance, he writes: “In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared.”

Coming tomorrow: Details on how Adam narrowed his focus.

Micheline Maynard

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 share of automotive companies. Micheline has covered the automotive industry for years, including for The New York Times and her four books include “The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market,” which “predicted” the collapse.

Dusk on Sixth Street at Sixth Street & Trinity Street, Austin, Texas. Photo: Larry D. Moore

So I asked her for advice on look-ahead reporting, also known as the “future word” among Bloombergians.

Tip One: Know where your industries and suppliers are located.

“That way, you’ll be able to tell when an industry is headed in a direction that might seem new or fresh,” Micheline says.

Tip Two: Build sources at economic development organizations.

“They’re generally the first place an investor goes when it’s time to get serious,” she says.

Tip Three: Build sources among lawyers, commercial real estate agents and site-selection consultants.

“It’s a small world, and people know each other,” she says. “The Southern states often work collaboratively to attract big factories and other investments, so if you know someone in Alabama, they can introduce you to someone in Mississippi, and so on.”

By Flickr user Blatant World

President Obama will address Congress and the nation Tuesday, Jan. 24, in the annual State of the Union speech.

It’s tempting, especially in an election year, to dismiss this staged event – and the many state-of-the-state addresses the nation’s governor’s are making this month and next – as pomp, theater and empty rhetoric.  But like all ‘watercooler talkers’ it’s a decent peg for a variety of angles for business journalists:

Past performance.  It’s a good time to interview business leaders, from small firms to large corporations, about the effects and efficacy of some of the major initiatives President Obama has launched during State of the Union speeches.

In 2009, fresh into office, the president discussed the just-signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the stimulus bill is formally known.  You can investigate local recipients at Recovery.gov using an interactive state map to find recipients of loans, grants and federal contracts tied to the stimulus bill.  You can even do a ZIP code search to find projects in your immediate neighborhoods.

In 2010 the president focused on jobs and health care reform, and in last year’s speech he proposed corporate tax cuts, federal investment in emerging sectors and eliminating subsidies to oil companies.

You can find the full text of previous State of the Union speeches at WhiteHouse.gov; you might comb through prior ones to find nuggets and proposals relevant to the companies and sectors you cover, and then ask a sampling of managers and executives if they saw any fruition from the proposals or subsequent new federal acts like the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.

Business outlook.   Obviously this is a great opportunity to check in with area business leaders, trade groups, professional associations, unions, regional economists, turnaround consultants and the myriad other entities you interview throughout the year for their take on what the president needs to do (or indeed, if a president can even be a ‘jobs creator’ in the first place) to continue to grow the economy.   The next few days are ripe for alternative storytelling like Q&A, executive quotes, panel discussions, text and video blogs and any other format in which the above stakeholders can convey their top priorities for 2012 legislation and government spending.  Try to force them to go beyond the usual ‘lower taxes and less regulation’ rhetoric and point to specific rules, laws and aid that would make  a material difference in jobs, revenue and profits.

State addresses.   Some state of the state speeches are in the can already, but you still can apply some of the above reporting strategies to ferret out details about business priorities in your region.  Here’s a handy chart of dates (and links to speeches already made) by Stateline.org.   Don’t forget to take a good look at state spending plans for 2012 too; organizations like the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Pew Center for the States are good go-to sources for analysis and round-ups of state revenue and spending issues.

By Flickr user Brad.L.Owens

It’s the start of a new year but it appears the same stories will dominate financial journalism in 2012:  the jobs market (or lack thereof), prices and inflation, financial industry regulation, health care, overseas economic crisis and the U.S. securities markets.

All worthy and interesting, but sometimes you just want to exercise your creativity, reporting skills and writing flair with some substantive yet fun business features that will entertain you and your readers but provide useful or thought-provoking information.

I’m all about quirky, so here to kick off the week are a few ideas that have been idling on my desktop lately:

Girl Scout cookie season.   According to this Girl Scouts blog, the cookie enterprise – with some $700 million in annual sales — is the nation’s largest female-run enterprise.  So even if you aren’t into stories about baked goods, this month’s kick-off of the annual sweets sale is an excellent peg for looking at the business and financial clout of women in your community.  You can check proxy statements of your state’s publicly owned companies for the presence of high-paid women execs, or go through the Small Business Administration to find women-owned government contractors, or go through professional groups like the National Association of Women Business Owners to find success stories in your area.  Maybe your area supplies some of the ingredients for Girl Scout cookies, which are baked by two major companies, according to this Girl Scout Cookie FAQ.

Many readers would enjoy a state-of-the-pastry report, though – I saw a TV report recently that said the cupcake is out and the layer cake is in; what are your local bakeries, patisseries, food distributors, grocery stores and other outlets or manufacturers seeing in terms of demand for baked goods?   What variations, like gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free etc. are growing in popularity and how do these niches affect bakery business models, costs, etc?

It’s also the 100th anniversary of Girl Scout Cookies; a timely reminder to look for other anniversary pegs about businesses in your area.

Kodak nears bankruptcy?   This NPR report does a good job of summarizing the digital downfall of Kodak, once the cutting-edge imaging technology firm.  The notion that this former Dow Industrial stalwart is passe will be stunning to a lot of readers who once aspired to its Instamatics.  And it made me think about the myriad obsolete products that not only have experienced their own demise but have made unnecessary the niche retailers that sold and serviced them.  Camera shops or watch and clock shops, for example, were common entities on every Main Street along with typewriter repair outlets and vaccuum cleaner/sewing machine emporiums.  All of the above, if they haven’t been replaced by multi-function cell phones, are readily available at Target and Kmart.  Not a new story, of course, but if you have a decaying business district or other small-business crisis in your community, a look at the contrast between dying and growing technologies might be interesting.

Another angle:  Where has all that photo processing equipment gone?  Are there places that recycle the chemical-heavy baths and conveyors that produced prints before digital imaging?  What happened to all of the machines formerly in drug stores, discount stores and other fast-foto enterprises?

Friday the 13th.   I’ve addressed this before – it’s not a major story but there’s enough financial and stock market superstition – not to mention shadow over local bingo halls, casinos and other games of chance – to make a look at this previous blog post worth  your while for idea nuggets.

Atlas Van Lines migration trends survey.  Just had to include this in case you missed it, and as fodder for thinking beyond the immediate headlines; the moving firm recently published is annual migration trends survey - and there’s nothing to stop you from interviewing other local or franchised moving companies about what activity in your region portends.   One story I’ve yearned to do:  Visit the areas that are meccas for ex-patriots of my state – North Carolina, for example, is a magnet for despairing Michiganians – and find out how people are faring a year or two after pulling up stakes.  If your region is either a draw for disgruntled workers or a sieve leaking talent to other areas, try following up with migrants to find out if their moves ended up making financial sense.

She found that there could be more deaths associated with the bumpers than the more than two dozen reports in the past two decades that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission acknowledged.  She reports:

“Federal regulators have known for years that bumper pads could pose a suffocation hazard but have failed to warn parents.”

Ellen Gabler's story for the Chicago Tribune prompted the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to re-examine the safety of crib bumpers.

That story in December 2010 prompted a re-examination of the safety of bumpers by the commission. Ellen did five more stories on bumper safety, among them reporting that the city of Chicago had banned their sale and the American Academy of Pediatrics had issued a new guideline against their use.

Today’s Tip: When seeking public records, ask to redact information you won’t need.

“Ask what you need to delete to get information faster,” she says. “You have to be careful though because you don’t want to give away your rights to get data.”

Ellen says the names of the manufacturers weren’t relevant for her story. The commission “is required by law to contact manufacturers and ask them to respond,” she says. “That becomes a stalling technique for the company.”

Because the commission’s data were incomplete, Ellen had to search local health department records and medical examiner reports, she says. She also had to rely on groups such as the National Center for Child Death Review and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Ellen recently left the Trib to become an investigative reporter/assistant editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

An oil field in Basra, near Baghdad. Photo: Atef Hassan/Reuters

Now, with final troops just about pulled out, as Reuters reports, another facet of relations with Iraq is dawning: an economic one.   As the Reuters article points out, Iraq needs overseas investment to continue rebuilding efforts, and as the fourth-largest oil-producing nation, its potential riches no doubt will attract many interested partners and investors.  Which makes this a good moment to discern any ties your region’s economy has to Iraq.

If you’re in oil country, you’re probably out ahead of this story — this New York Times story from last June, “As Iraq oil industry rebuilds, American subcontractors dominate the work,” dooes a good job explaining how Iraq auctioned oil fields to raise money, and how the tapping of them has led to billions of dollars of work for American subcontractors even if U.S. oil interests were largely shut out of the auction.

If your area isn’t home to any of the big prime contractors listed in the article, you still might find equipment providers, consultants like architects, engineers and scientists, lenders or other regional firms with relationships to oil work currently under way in Iraq.  Try your state’s chamber of commerce, professional groups and trade organizations like the Society of Petroleum Engineers and others listed in this roster compiled by the research firm PetroStrategies, Inc.

Finding non-oil ties to Iraq might be more challenging, but there’s been a fair amount of trade-related activity (promotional, that is — see this CNN report from Dec. 13 about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pitching the country to American business leaders last week)  in recent years, so listed below are a few resources you might try for leads.

Aside from them, try your state’s chamber, the governor’s office, leading universities’ business, economics and even Middle East studies departments; you never know.  Even student groups comprised of scholars from Iraq may be aware of regional ties to their home country.  A little brainstorming and detective work could pay off with some interesting financial and business features that will give your audience food for thought.

Next, check out this interesting 32-page PDF, “Doing business in Iraq,” produced in 2009 by the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Note the caveats about scams and investment cautions; that angle too could be updated and developed into the focus of a story aimed at area companies wondering about opportunities in the Middle East.  Legal and cultural requirements for local partners are mentioned; you could speak with U.S. Chamber and state department officials, as well as consulting firms and law firms, about the procedures, dos & don’ts and other information.  Note the resource links in the body of the article to groups and agencies that offer to assist U.S. firms; they might be interesting sources.

I have no idea if government contractors may be extending their operations in Iraq even if no longer needed by the U.S. military, but this list of the Top 100 U.S. Contractors in Iraq & Afghanistan, compiled a couple of years ago by the Center for Public Integrity may provide a few leads.  So might the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce and the United States Trade and Development Agency.