Supreme Court deliberations can seem opaque and perplexing to reporters who haven’t had constitutional history classes, or spent time covering courts. But a basic understanding of how the court operates is a vital tool in a business journalist’s toolbox. Throughout its history, the Supreme Court has decided numerous cases that deal with business matters. In [...]
As business journalists, we handle scores of data and do our best to use those figures and statistics to both build and bolster articles. Some of the benefits from the ever-expanding digital world include not only the increasing amount of information, but also the emergence of unique ways to visualize data. I’ve found that Google [...]
Just because you may not have access to a full-fledged graphics department, doesn’t mean you have to be left out of the rise of the online infographic and all the extra page views that come along with it. Several websites have emerged in recent months that make it easier than ever for business journalists to [...]
Presentations by 17 top journalists, data experts and census specialists have been gathered into a training archive called: “Going Deep with Census Demographic and Economic Data.” In partnership with the McCormick Foundation, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University offers the free online training for any journalists reporting on [...]
Personal finance covers the gamut from credit cards and investments to student loans and insurance. It’s important that you have a good understanding of the basic terms and concepts so you can cut through the jargon. Here are the ones you should know: ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME: AGI is a measure of income used to determine [...]
One of the best things about covering personal finance is that EVERYONE can relate to the subject and will always have their ideas and opinions. Your job is to separate the really good, legitimate ones from the wacko ones. National stories abound about personal finance, but your job is to write about topics that your [...]
Personal finance reporting covers such a broad range of subjects that the challenges are many and varied. Here’s a list of them, as well as the most common errors: MAKING THE SAME TOPICS INTERESTING AND RELEVANT — We will always be writing about saving, investing, credit cards, income, budgeting, student loans and other things that [...]
One of the best ways to learn a beat is to read materials by journalists who are the best at covering the topic. Below are books that every reporter new to the personal finance beat should read. Read them not only for knowledge of the content, but for the way the authors boil down complex, [...]
Covering personal finance is part journalism and part counseling. No event has brought this home more to me than the economic hurricane we’ve experienced. The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression was a rude awakening for consumers. Many lost jobs, found themselves underwater in their mortgages, deep in credit card debt and with few, [...]
