Best Practices

Health care biz: When the debate gets personal

By Kelly Carr on Mar 19, 2010 in Best Practices, Investigation, Personal finance, SABEW 2010, SABEW 2010 blog, Tools, TrendingTopic

This morning, I got a little tip: Check out Amanda
Bennett’s latest package on end-of-life care at Bloomberg.com.
Bennett’s husband died of cancer several years ago and soon after she faced bills that totaled $618,616, most of it for the final two years of his battle.
The huge cost of care led her to ask, “When is [...]

The skinny on data ratios

By Kelly Carr on Mar 19, 2010 in Basics, Best Practices, Investigation, SABEW 2010, SABEW 2010 blog, Tools, TrendingTopic

Getting up early on a Friday morning is rough. Leaving your bed for a three-hour class on accounting at the very end of the week, well that’s almost impossible.
But the early risers (and that included me) at this year’s SABEW conference were in for a real treat. This morning we spent hours learning how to [...]

‘It’s just TV’ — broadcast prof tells business journalists how to look natural on air

By Linda Austin on Mar 19, 2010 in Best Practices, SABEW 2010, SABEW 2010 blog, Tools, TrendingTopic

Arizona State University professor Sue Green interviews freelancer Daniel Lovering in a Reynolds Center workshop designed to help business journalists look natural on air.

Remember: “It’s just TV.”

That’s the advice that Sue Green gave 10 participants in a Reynolds Center workshop today on how to look natural on air. She is the broadcast director of the [...]

NPR wins award for look at Merck’s marketing of Fosamax

By Rosland Gammon on Mar 19, 2010 in Best Practices, Featured, Health care, Story ideas

NPR’s Alix Spiegel won the Jack R. Howard Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation for a segment that explained how Merck & Co. Inc. increased profitability by helping to recast normal, mild bone loss as an ailment and then marketed an unnecessary prescription for it. She says:
“This is the story of how pills for osteopenia ended [...]

Boston Globe questions tax incentives for companies promising jobs

By Rosland Gammon on Mar 18, 2010 in Best Practices, Economy, Featured, Investigation

Todd Wallack

Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe writes about the lack of followup on tax breaks that cities and states use to lure companies. In Massachusetts, he found that no one checks back to ensure that the companies keep their hiring promises. He writes:
“A Fall River rubber parts maker pledged to create 20 jobs, but cut 36 instead. A manufacturer [...]

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 [...]

NICAR 2010: Collection of best of CAR reporting

By Robin J Phillips on Mar 16, 2010 in Best Practices, IRE CAR 2010, IRE CAR 2010 Blog, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

IRE’s NICAR 2010 over. They’ve closed up shop and everyone has headed home.
But let’s take one more look at the Best of the Year in CAR-based reporting.
Best of the Year in CAR 2010 (PDF) by Doug Haddix and Mark Horvit, IRE and NICAR
Haddix and Horvit put together this 42-slide PDF showing soe of [...]

Philly Inquirer maps data, finds higher unemployment in affluent areas

By Rosland Gammon on Mar 16, 2010 in Best Practices, Economy, Featured, Story ideas

Business writer Jane M. Von Bergen of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes about unemployment among those in the area’s wealthier ZIP codes. The story started with counts of continuing-unemployment claims in July 2007 and July 2009 by ZIP code in the Philadelphia area, gathered from the Pennsylvania and New Jersey departments of labor.
Today’s Tip: Map data first to see [...]