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.
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 [...]
With a little more than 100 days to go before the start of the 2012 Olympic Summer Games in London, you might want to start planning a series of stories or a package, depending on your beat, that ties in to the weeks-long event that will dominate headlines this summer. A few angles that come to [...]
Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Andrea Ahles, Box Cox, Gordon Dickson, Scott Nishimura and Mitchell Schnurman won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Best in Business award last month for their day one coverage of American Airlines’ bankruptcy filing. The package included stories about the filing, the incoming CEO and labor unions. It became the [...]
After facing several trying years battling the faltering U.S. economy, the outlook at Ford Motor Co. has a glimmer these days. And James Farley Jr., the company’s vice president for marketing, is part of an executive team that helped make it happen. From the company’s revamp of its overhead capacity numbers to a realization of [...]
That famous Detroit-centric “Halftime in America” ad during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago subtly touted the auto industry’s turnaround, and other sources are starting to echo the cry as we head toward another monthly sales report. And according to this Associated Press story from Monday, “Detroit automakers race to keep up with sales,” [...]
With post-Mardi Gras headaches barely a thing of the past for Fat Tuesday revelers, it’s now time to consider the business angles surrounding the next bout of winter debauchery and discretionary spending popularly known as spring break. Many colleges and universities will be entering the annual mid-term hiatus within the next week or few – [...]
We already knew 2012 would be an action-packed dozen months, what with a U.S. presidential election, a British queen’s diamond jubilee, the London Olympics, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and sundry other milestones. But who knew that Leap Year 2012 could be so fraught with action for business writers? I’ve been [...]
With the release today of the White House budget proposal for 2013, expect a repeat of last year’s fiscal feuding – fueled by election-year steroids – as Congress dukes it out over President Obama’s reported $1.3 trillion spending plan. A number of news reports over the past few days have suggested proposed cut s- to [...]
Reading John Fuquay’s piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about AMR Corp.’s pensions gave me flashbacks to my days of covering bankruptcy at Bloomberg News. His article helps readers understand why AMR’s projections of its pension obligations are 42 percent less than the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s calculations. Pensions aren’t the easiest topics to decipher, [...]
