Tech reporters are a breed of their own, with a distinct set of skills, knowledge and experience. In this primer, G. Pascal Zachary, who reported on Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury and The Wall Street Journal, gives us the basics.
Buyers love a bargain, and indeed it seems that U.S. consumers have become conditioned to withhold purchasing until they feel they’re getting a hefty percentage off a regular retail price. Check out the spectacular fail of J.C. Penney’s no-gimmicks, everyday pricing strategy that has the venerable department store on the ropes. My theory is that [...]
As the season of self-indulgence draws near to a close, many consumers who splurged over the summer start to hitch up their belts and take stock of the household budget going into fall. One area where sticker shock seems to prevail is the monthly cable television and Internet service bill, which in many communities is well [...]
It sounds like something out a black-and-white science fiction flick from the 1950s: 21st century humans going about their daily lives, while little robots in the sky perform tasks and monitor the humans’ every move. Truth may become stranger than fiction in coming years as federal regulations on the use of airborne drones – or [...]
The shrieks from roller-coaster cars and the splashes of flume rides are as much a part of the summer ambiance as the play-by-play of a baseball game and the whine of mosquitoes. And if you’re looking for a colorful story premise on just about any beat – technology, health care, personal finance, retail sales and [...]
“Is your refrigerator spying on your eating habits?” That’s a headline I’m half expecting soon, as wave after wave of headlines about government surveillance emanate from Washington, D.C., and beyond. And as citizens reel from fresh news that their leaders are tuning in to cell phone conversations, or planning to collect DNA from people not convicted [...]
It’s hard to overlook the buzz created by this week’s revelation by actor and activist Angelina Jolie that she had preemptive surgery to remove both breasts, because she carries a gene that makes cancer likely. News of Jolie’s decision, which she wrote about in a first-person New York Times essay on Tuesday, has generated a great [...]
The Seattle Times does a comprehensive job of exploring how foreign worker visas affect American workers in the technology field. Reporters Kyung Song and Janet Tu start the story with a recent computer science graduate who struggled to find a job. They write thousands of programmers and engineers have faced the same challenge “despite reports [...]
With vivid images of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion still making headlines, you may be thinking about a workplace safety angle to the companies you cover. It’s a natural story to localize, as audiences ponder the relative perils they face on the job. From inspection records to prevalence of workers compensation claims to fatalities to [...]
How is biomedical research driving jobs, business start-ups and technology in your market? News this week of President Obama’s proposed $100 million funding for a ‘brain-mapping initiative“ might prompt you to take a look at how biomedical research may be driving jobs, business start-ups and technology in your market. Here’s a link to the White House [...]
