Everybody shops, but the retail beat is about much more than going to the mall. We asked Ylan Q. Mui, who covers consumers and the economy at The Washington Post, to explain how and why.
Two festive party occasions share the calendar on Saturday, making this an apt week for a variety of marketing stories. The Kentucky Derby, in which three-year-old Thoroughbreds will race for the 138th time, also is a decent peg for taking a look at the equine and racing industries in your state. For such a niche interest [...]
Food safety issues are rearing their … microbes, lately, prompting a new set of related business story possibilities.
If you think about the scene from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” when you valet park your car, you’ll love Hannah Sampson’s recent story in The Miami Herald. She writes about how the costs of parking and valet usage have soared due to an increase in upscale hotels and restaurants in South Florida. Her story details [...]
Amy Martinez and colleagues at The Seattle Times put together a series exploring Amazon.com’s corporate practices, focusing on its charitable donations, publishing business, sales-tax fight, and warehouse workers. Part one notes that Amazon hasn’t made significant donations - like other large companies have – in the Seattle area. Amy and Kristi Heim write: “It’s a minor [...]
It might be a bit macabre, but I’ve been thinking there are plenty of ways to find a business follow-up to the death of impresario and TV legend Dick Clark. Given that his entertainment-industry career spanned several generations, and productions ranging from “American Bandstand” to various versions of the ”$10,000 Pyramid” game show to his signature “New [...]
Well, between the upcoming first anniversary of Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the news about “Brangelina’s” engagement, the faint peal of wedding bells is in the air. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling complete indifference to movie star marriage proposals, but a news peg is a news peg, especially heading into the [...]
Sunday is Earth Day 2012, and while the four-decades old observance isn’t getting the attention it did on its 40th birthday in 2010, it’s still a decent news peg for a green business, finance or consumer piece. The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Mobilize the Earth,” and social media campaigns will play a [...]
Postal service reform likely will be back on the front burner when Congress returns from Easter break, leaving only a month for lawmakers to come up with an alternative plan to the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed shuttering of 223 processing facilities and other changes. The money-losing service says it must make the cuts to slash [...]
The unfolding story of Conference-gate – the apparently lavish Las Vegas conference held by a unit of the General Services Administration now coming under attacks by critics of tax-dollar waste – does have its head-turning elements. From $4-a-shrimp snacks to commemorative coins in velvet boxes to a $75,000 team-building exercise, it does sound a bit over [...]
