Like transportation itself, covering it is a beautiful thing when it works. When it doesn’t, the failures are out there for all to see. Bernie Kohn, team Leader at Bloomberg News, outlines basic building blocks for smart transportation coverage.
A news story about a railroad pedestrian death doesn’t usually prompt a three-part series. But after some digging, Todd Frankel, an enterprise reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, realized it wasn’t an isolated incident. “It’s the leading cause of death on railroads,” Todd says. “It surprised me because I assumed most deaths were at railroad [...]
New U.S. car sales are due out today, and TrueCar forecasts November to boost the annual sales pace to its highest since early 2008, boding well for car makers and retailers. Pent-up demand from consumers who are hanging on to their old vehicles for a record number of years, along with incentives and slowly improving [...]
This week kicks off a month-long whirlwind travel season, with 24 million people expected to fly in the United States for Thanksgiving alone, according to an industry trade group. Here’s a list generated by Orbitz, for example, of the U.S. airports expected to be the most- and least-busiest this weekend. Business stories pertaining to this seasonal phenomenon [...]
At this festive time of year, one of the downers is the prevalence of drunk or impaired driving, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says causes one death every 48 minutes in the United States. And the National Highway Transportation Safety last year told the Wall Street Journal that Thanskgiving weekend had topped [...]
Plywood is in more demand this weekend than pumpkins and apple cider as millions of Americans prepare for the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Generators, dry ice and food are hot sellers, too, as consumers, companies and institutions batten down.
According to a recent TripAdvisor survey, 34 percent of respondents said they’ll spend more on travel this autumn than in 2011, and 61 percent said they have more than one trip planned. With that in mind, you might want to take the pulse of fall tourism in your area, with an eye on what area [...]
One good thing about the post-Labor Day period is that it tends to draw an end to the “summer doldrums” business journalists endure. The back-to-work/back-to-school period is usually rife with angles for financial writers, and this week is no exception. Here are a few items too timely to wait in line for their own separate [...]
Even before Labor Day I spotted glitzy Halloween socks in Rite-Aid and Christmas trees in a craft stores, meaning it’s none too soon to gauge the holiday hiring outlook. This used to be a story that could wait until the leaves started to change color, but not any more. Retail generally is the first industry [...]
The monthly new-vehicle sales reports are due out from automakers on Sept. 4, and expected to show a 17-percent uptick, according to TrueCars.com. Taking the pulse of new car and truck sales is always a good economy story. For example, ask area dealers if rising demand for new vehicles has boosted employment in their sales and service divisions. Talk with local lenders [...]
