But Henriques, best known recently for her extensive coverage of the Bernie Madoff scandal and subsequent book ‘The Wizard of Lies,” will continue working with the paper as a contributing writer effective today.

In an e-mail Henriques said, “You may hear that I have accepted the latest NYT buyout. I have, but I am not retiring or leaving the Times. I was immediately offered and accepted a contract to work as a contributing writer – same email, same phone, same address, an NYT cubicle, etc.”

In addition to continuing on as a contributor, Henriques is working with HBO as a consultant on the Madoff story and has accepted a writer-in-residence appointment at Princeton University. She’s also a board member for the Society of Business Editors and Writers and a frequent instructor at the Reynolds Center. 

Before covering Madoff and leading other business investigations for the Times, Henriques spent almost 20 years at several New Jersey newspapers and as a financial reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her reporting on the fallout from the Enron scandal earned her a finalist spot for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. She was again a finalist for the prize in 2005 for a series on the exploitation of American military personnel by financial service companies. 

“In 2010 alone, tornadoes, severe storms, earthquakes, flooding, drought, the BP oil spill and more caused destruction,” she writes in an email. “To repair the damage, more than $494 million in loans was approved by the Small Business Administration.”

Disaster loans from SBA help homeowners, renters, businesses of all sizes and nonprofit groups rebuild after a disaster, she says.

The price for the database ranges from $60 to $160, depending on the size of the news organization. Data for individual states can be had for $40 to $100.

For more information, visit the IRE and NICAR website or e-mail IRE’s Database Library, or call (573) 884-7711.

If you’re looking for training in how to use Excel and analyze data, check out the free “Be a Better Business Watchdog — CAR for Business Journalists” workshops on Sept. 13 in Seattle and Nov. 8 in Cleveland. These workshops are co-presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and IRE. You do not have to be a member of IRE to attend.

Andrew Leckey

Having been interviewed on Chinese television more than a dozen times in recent years, Reynolds Center President Andrew Leckey offers these tips, among others, on dealing with China in a commentary today for MarketWatch:

• Many Chinese take personally the criticism of government policy. While we are often loudly critical of our government, they consider China one entity that includes them. Outsiders criticizing it are, in effect, disrespecting the Chinese people and heritage. Harmony is important. Stick to facts when discussing issues of conflict and make sure your points stand on their own merit, which is not a bad idea no matter what the country.

• They know more about us than we know about them. Our clothes and technology were made in China, but our information is limited to news reports. They see our movies, follow the NBA, dine at KFC and Starbucks, buy Buicks and display posters of American actors and athletes in stores. They celebrate Christmas big-time, though not the religious part. Yet that’s hardly a clear picture of America or Americans….

• When significant issues are brought up, Chinese of all ages point out that we should realize they’ve come a long way in a short period of time, even if where they’re headed isn’t totally mapped out. Bridging the gap between wealthiest and poorest will be one of the biggest economic tasks.

To read the full piece, click here.

Leckey is also the Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University.

That compares to a median salary of just over $60,000 in a survey of 473 randomly selected business journalists conducted by a market-research firm in April and May for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. The median means half make more and half make less.

SABEW asked business journalists to tell it what they made, and 394 responded to the request from its volunteer director of research, Chris Roush. Roush is the Walter E. Hussman senior distinguished scholar in business journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The median salary for a business reporter was between $60,000 and $65,000, while the median salary for a business section editor was between $75,000 to $80,000, SABEW found. An editor of a business print publication had a median salary between $95,000 and $100,000.

The Reynolds Center survey by Behavior Research Center Inc. of Phoenix found the highest salaries among wire-service journalists; those with 10 to 19 years of experience had a median salary of $102,500. The lowest salaries were among print journalists; those with less than 10 years of experience reported a median salary of $32,800. See page 19 of the study for more salary details.

THE FULL REYNOLDS CENTER STUDY: Business Journalists Study 2010 (PDF)
Respondents averaged 20 years in journalism and 12.8 years as business journalists. Along with salary data, they reported many changes in their jobs in the past five years:

• Six out of 10 are doing more or about the same level of investigative journalism.
• Nine out of 10 have learned new skills.
• Three-fourths say their workload has increased and they use social media.
• About half blog, file first for the Web and cover more beats.

In instances like this, please do not hit the reply button to try to unsubscribe. It just perpetuates the problem.

We take your faith in and support of the Reynolds Center very seriously, and we are deeply disturbed by this breach of your trust.

Thanks for your forbearance, and we apologize for these unauthorized communications with you.

If you’ve already asked to unsubscribe and would like to remain on our listserv, please e-mail me. We plan to send out our fall training schedule this week.

Again, my apologies, and thanks for your interest in the Reynolds Center.

Other speakers at the “Economy in Recovery Conference” at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism include Starwood CEO Frits Van Paasschen and JetBlue COO Rob Maruster. The complete schedule is here.

The Reynolds Center’s “Produce a Business News Video in a Day” workshop will provide hands-on instruction in how to create a business news video. No previous video experience or equipment is required. The instructor is Arizona State University TV-production specialist Brian Snyder. The session is part of the Fall Conference program of hands-on training on Oct. 2, but you do not have to attend the Fall Conference to participate in this free workshop. Registration for the video workshop is required, however, because the number of spots is limited.

Early registration by Aug. 30 for the Fall Conference is $149 for SABEW members, $199 for non-members, and can be completed online.

The just announced 2010-2011 class of Donald W. Reynolds Fellows includes “entrepreneurs, digital game and Smartphone developers, and leaders in civic and print journalism,” according to the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

The fellows spend an academic year at the institute developing “new ways to gather, process and deliver news, information and advertising.” This year’s fellows and their projects are:

• David Cohn, director of Spot.us. 
  Community Funded Reporting
  
• Anne Derryberry, news editor and columnist at Learning Solutions Magazine.
  The Wire: A 2.0 Ecosystem for Journalism
  
• David Herzog, associate professor of print and digital news at the Missouri School of Journalism. 
  Open Missouri
  
• Joy Mayer, associate professor of print and digital news at the Missouri School of Journalism.
  Ditch the lecture. Join the conversation.
  
• Lisa Skube, vice president of strategy for Pop Art. 
  Reconstitution of news prepares for Web 3.0
  
• Will Sullivan, interactive director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  Mobile Development Opportunities

Fellow David Cohn will present at a free Reynolds Center workshop on Sept. 1 in San Francisco called, “Engage Your Community to Power Your Business Coverage.” He will be joined by John A. Byrne, former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com, and Robin J. Phillips, Web managing editor of BusinessJournalism.org. This half-day session, hosted by MarketWatch, will give business journalists a clearer picture of the importance of community and expose them to tools and tactics for learning from their communities. Participants are urged to bring ideas or projects they are working on so that the presenters can explore ways to engage their community. To sign up, click here.

About the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute engages media professionals, scholars and citizens in programs aimed at improving the practice and understanding of journalism. Part of the Missouri School of Journalism, RJI collaborates with news and technology companies, professional associations, foundations and individuals to generate and test innovative models and technologies for journalism and advertising. Six Donald W. Reynolds Fellows spend an academic year at RJI, working with Missouri faculty and students and RJI staff to develop new ways to gather, process and deliver news, information and advertising. RJI was launched in 2004 with an initial $31 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. In 2009, the Foundation awarded the Institute an additional $15 million for operating support.

About The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. It also funds the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University, which produces BusinessJournalism.org.

Wall Street Journal reporters Andy Pasztor and Susan Carey won the Dornheim Award for aviation coverage for their reporting on the crash of a Colgan Air turboprop near Buffalo, N.Y. “They revealed the minimal training of the pilots and shockingly detailed a lack of discipline in the cockpit. Their reporting drew the public’s attention to large issues of a flight school using students as pilots in its own airline and explored how a hiring boom at commuter airlines had led to crews with minimal training,” according to the press club announcement.

Herald reporters Michael Sallah, Rob Barry and Lucy Komisar won the consumer journalism award for print with their expose of Allen Stanford’s massive Ponzi scheme that cost investors $7 billion. “The reporters combed through mountains of records and e-mails and conducted interviews with company insiders to develop a package of absorbing stories about a financial player who fended off government oversight in the United States and in Caribbean countries.

The Herald’s work helped lead to a bill in the Florida legislature that would force state agents to monitor all offshore finance firms in Florida — including foreign trust offices — for fraud, money laundering and the destruction of key records,” the club said.

The Herald’s coverage of the scheme also recently won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

In broadcast, PBS’ Frontline won the consumer journalism award for “The Card Game.” The co-production with The New York Times, investigated the consumer-loan industry.

Other winners include:

• Consumer Journalism (periodicals): Bloomberg BusinessWeek “Policing the Cleanup.”
• Edwin M. Hood Diplomatic: Lisa Friedman, ClimateWire: “China: The Yin & Yang of Climate Change.”
• Washington Regional Reporting: Tommy Burr, Salt Lake Tribune.
• Rowse Press Criticism: David Folkenflik, NPR, “Why GQ Doesn’t Want Russians to Read Its Story;” Dean Starkman, Columbia Journalism Review, “Power Problem.”
• Newsletter Journalism: Christopher Castelli, “Inside the Navy.”
• Free Animal Reporting (print): “A Cure for Euthanasia?” David Grimm, Science Magazine.
• Free Animal Reporting (broadcast): “Stampede to Oblivion,” George Knapp, reporter and Matthew Adams, photojournalist/editor, KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, Nev.
• Hume Award for Political Journalism: Joseph J. Schatz of CQ, “Duet with the Dragon.”
• Friedheim Travel Award: Al Letson for his public radio broadcast of “Brooklyn – Change Happens” on the series “State of the Re:Union.
• Gingras Humor Award: Barry Newman, The Wall Street Journal.
• Friedenberg Online Journalism Award: The Seattle Times for its multimedia coverage of the killings of four police officers.

The deadline — Aug. 2 — is approaching for a major business journalism contest, the Reynolds Center’s Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism. To enter work published in the year ending June 30, 2010, click here. Prizes total $7,000.

“The candidate will be responsible for producing regular business programming, including daily news and interview segments — in close collaboration with the Times business desk. The position requires strong experience in business journalism, including reporting and writing, as well as advanced shooting and Final Cut Pro editing skills.”

To apply, send your resume to videojobsearch@nytimes.com.