Six times a week, I have to stand and deliver for the Seattle Times: Five blog posts and one Sunday column. My editor, Becky Bisbee, gives me plenty of latitude on topics, but that doesn’t ease the intimidating blank canvas that often awaits me. Most journalists are in this position, and the temptation is to [...]
I resisted the demands of my masters to add personal finance coverage through most of my career as a business editor. My reasons were various and could be filed under “Does Not Play Well With Others.” For one thing, there are two basic personal finance stories: 1) Don’t be greedy and 2) Don’t be stupid, [...]
Every journalist should have a short list of blogs, resources and writers from which to keep learning. I emphasize short list because the information environment is so crowded, with both great stuff and junk, that we could be reading 24/7 and barely graze the surface. But we don’t get paid to just read. So here [...]
As a financial journalist, I always resented the sports section. After all, we cover the most important stories for individuals and communities, about their jobs, livelihoods and economies. But who gets the biggest budgets and largest number of pages? Sports. On reflection, however, there’s much we can learn from sports. Consider: • It’s about competition, [...]
I was listening to Bill Moyers the other night, where his guest was Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald. The latter talked about official secrecy, the danger it poses to our society and got in a dig at the media for not playing its essential adversarial role to government. It got me thinking about business journalism. Should [...]
What exactly is this we’re living though? I’ve been covering business and the economy since 1984 and have never experienced anything like it. If you’re in a city such as Austin or Seattle, things are booming again. Other vast swaths of the nation are still hurting — March unemployment in Nevada was 9.7 percent. Indeed, [...]
I was never afraid of the Internet. I was at the Charlotte Observer when the Charlotte.com site was launched, and much gnashing of teeth and tearing of garments happened at this newspaper known for its careful, writerly approach. Should we put up stories before they appeared in the physical paper, even for breaking news? Should [...]
I frequently hear a common complaint from reporters: “The company (or chief executive) won’t talk. All to often, the reporter’s response is to go away and pick low-hanging fruit. This is exactly the way corporations want it. They want to control the news. They want to manage their “message.” Our duty, informing employees, shareholders and [...]
If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out — Anonymous LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote an important piece last month headlined, “How Apple invites facile analysis.” It’s worth a careful read by every business journalist, whether you’re a reporter, editor or commentator, whether you cover technology or not. I don’t want [...]
