Private companies

Quirky local indicators and other fun biz angles

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 18, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Personal finance, Private companies, Story ideas

Miscellaneous is probably my favorite among the 600,000-plus words in our English language. Like potpourri, salmagundi, hodgepodge, pastiche and its others sisters, it conjures up pleasant notions of variety, spontaneity and surprise.
That’s what you’re getting today: A veritable gallimaufry and mélange of topics that don’t quite merit their own posts but nevertheless will make for [...]

With ’so what,’ Milwaukee paper makes you care about patents backlog

By Rosland Gammon on Mar 17, 2010 in Best Practices, Economy, Featured, Investigation, Private companies

John Schmid and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were finalists in the business/economics reporting category for the National Journalism Awards sponsored by the Scripps Howard Foundation for their articles about how the backlog in patent applications affects the economy.
Their stories, and a nifty interactive timeline, are based on a plethora of numbers, and the topic on [...]

Backgrounding people and businesses

By Linda Austin on Mar 14, 2010 in Best Practices, IRE CAR 2010, IRE CAR 2010 Blog, Investigation, Non-profits, Private companies, Tools, TrendingTopic

Jaimi Dowdell, training director for IRE, recommended that you have a strategy when it comes to using the Web as an investigative tool.
“Know what you’re after,” she told sessions on the concluding day of the CAR Conference in Phoenix. “Know what is available, and know when enough is enough.”
She also advised a healthy dose of [...]

Help readers make sense of food recalls

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 09, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Health care, Investigation, Personal finance, Private companies, Retail, Story ideas

You think Toyotas with rogue throttles are scary?
Try Pringles with salmonella.
Over the past few days news of another possibly widespread food recall has broken, and your readers will be wondering how it affects them. While you’re at it, you might want to develop a broader piece on food inspection, retail and restaurant inspection and other [...]

Networking at industry awards ceremonies

By Melissa Preddy on Mar 05, 2010 in Beats, Featured, Non-profits, Private companies, Story ideas

We’ve all received those calls and e-mails extending chipper invitations – with interview opportunities! – to an awards ceremony to honor the Midwest Mortician of the Year or the new inductees to a sales representatives’ billion-dollar club.
“Thanks so much, but I expect to be ‘on deadline’ that night,” you murmur, grateful for the vague and [...]

Using inventories reports for economic clues

By Melissa Preddy on Feb 12, 2010 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Private companies, Retail, Story ideas

The Census Bureau business inventories report, out today, is one of those arcane data sets that are worth understanding because they can help you speak the lingo and generate cogent questions for interviews with corporate executives on your beat.
The monthly report tallies the value of existing wholesale, manufacturing and retail inventories in dollars. The data [...]

World looks for ways to help in Haiti disaster

By Robin J Phillips on Jan 13, 2010 in Health care, Personal finance, Private companies, TrendingTopic

There was a 7.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast late night on Jan. 12. Relief efforts are underway.
As rescuers try to get into the areas of devastation, people around the world are asking how they can help. Initially, this is a rescue story, but there are also angles for the business journalist to look at.
As the [...]

Local success stories may help brighten the mood

By Melissa Preddy on Dec 11, 2009 in Featured, Private companies, Story ideas

Even for contrarians who relish a bit of bleak news, 2009 has been quite the biz-beat downer.
Yes, the stock markets regained a pulse and the recession was declared finis, but we’ve basically been dominated by doom-and-gloom reports about jobs, real estate, corporate bankruptcy and financial malaise.
With little more than two weeks left in our year [...]

Find the local in global climate summit

By Melissa Preddy on Dec 08, 2009 in Beats, Featured, Private companies, Story ideas

For the next week or so, some 15,000 delegates from around the planet will continue meeting at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen to discuss quandaries and proposed solutions related to the environmental impact of humans and particularly greenhouse gases.
If you haven’t done an alternative energy story in a while, this might be [...]