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 the U.S. census.

Robert Gebeloff, database projects editor, The New York Times, explains the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation.

The package recreates a census workshop held at the Cronkite School including videos, slide presentations and other materials to help journalists and others understand the wide range of demographic, economic and other data collected by the Census Bureau. Each session is about 40 minutes long.

The U.S. Bureau of the Census is the nation’s premier data-gathering and dissemination agency. But few reporters know about this cornucopia of information and how it can be used for stories.

No excuses after you take a look at these presentations. The list below previews what you’ll find in this full training document: “Going Deep with Census Demographic and Economic Data”

2010 Census
Ron Nixon, correspondent, The New York Times

Great Stories You Can Do with the American Community Survey
D’Vera Cohn, senior writer, Pew Research Center

Census Geography: Maps and Apps
Joe Germuska, news application developer, Chicago Tribune

Using American FactFinder and Data Ferrett
Ron Campbell, staff writer, The Orange County Register

Supplement Your Reporting With CPS and SIPP
Robert Gebeloff, database projects editor, The New York Times

Surveys of Jails, Prisons and Employees
Steve Doig, Knight Chair, Arizona State University

Small-Area Health Insurance, Income and Poverty
Wes Basel, production team leader, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program, U.S. Census Bureau

Using iPums.org
Katie Genadek, research assistant, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota

Economic Census and County Business Patterns
Sara Cohen, Knight Chair, Duke University

Employment and Unemployment Estimates
Tom Rex, associate director, Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research, Arizona State University

Hometown Economic Data from Bureau of Economic Analysis
Dennis Cauchon, reporter, USA Today

Digging Deeper on Employment: Local Employment Dynamics Data
Paul Overberg, database editor, USA TODAY

Housing and Construction Data from the Census Bureau
Arthur Cresce, assistant division chief for housing characteristics, U.S. Census Bureau

Survey of Governments
Christopher Pece, senior technical adviser, U.S. Census Bureau

Current Surveys of Wholesale and Retail Trade
Timothy Winters, chief, Retail Indicators Branch, U.S. Census Bureau

Census: Current Surveys of Manufacturing and Services
Ron Farrar, chief, Health Care and Consumer Services Branch, U.S. Census Bureau

Foreign Trade Data from the U.S. Census Bureau
Joe Kafchinski, statistician, U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division

The bureau, along with sister data agencies such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, collects and analyzes data on a wide range of demographic and economic topics. These include everything from the decennial census to tabulations and surveys covering employment, wages, government finances, housing, foreign trade, criminal justice and much more.

Photo by Flickr user lactulli

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 your taxable income. It’s calculated as your gross income minus deductions, such as unreimbursed business expenses,  medical expenses and deductible retirement plan contributions.

ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE OR APR: This tells you the annual cost of a loan and is stated as a percentage. The APR consists of the base interest rate and loan fees and costs. With credit cards, the APR is charged on credit card balances each month that there’s an outstanding balance.

ANNUITY: An annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company that’s designed to meet retirement and other long-range goals. You  make a lump-sum payment or series of payments to the insurance company. In return, the insurer agrees to make periodic payments to you beginning immediately or at some future date.

In a fixed annuity, the insurance company pays you a specified rate of interest during the time that your account is growing. The insurance company also agrees that the periodic payments will be a specified amount per dollar in your account. These periodic payments may last for a definite period, such as 20 years, or an indefinite period, such as your lifetime or the lifetime of you and your spouse.

In a variable annuity, you typically invest your purchase payments in mutual funds. The rate of return and the amount the insurance company pays you  will vary depending on the performance of the investment options you’ve selected.

ASSET ALLOCATION: Asset allocation is determining how to divvy up your money among various investments, such as stocks, bonds or cash.

Once you determine what asset classes you want in your investment portfolio, you then determine how to mix those in the right proportions so you can reach your investment goals at the level of risk you’re comfortable with.

BOND PRICES AND INTEREST RATES: Bonds are highly sensitive to interest rates, so bond prices move inversely to interest rates. This means that when interest rates rise, bond prices fall. Conversely, when rates fall, bond prices rise. Many readers don’t understand this concept, so it’s important that you are able to explain it to them.

When interest rates rise, it depresses the prices of previously issued bonds because their interest rates are fixed. So if you have a bond that’s paying 6 percent interest and market rates rise to 8 percent, the only way you could sell your bond is to lower its price.

However, if rates fall to 3 percent, your bond that’s paying 6 percent interest will be more valuable to investors and you could sell that bond at a premium over its face value because the 6 percent rate would be higher than the market rate.

All this doesn’t affect investors who hold a bond until it matures because the value of the bond doesn’t change because interest rates fluctuate. They will get the full principal back at maturity. However, those who buy and sell bonds have to pay close attention to interest rates.

CAPITAL GAIN: The profit you get from selling a stock over your original purchase price.

CAPITAL LOSS: The loss you incur from selling a stock from your original purchase price.

COST BASIS: The basis is the purchase price of an investment, including commissions and other expenses. The basis is also adjusted for stock splits, dividends and return of capital distributions. The basis is a critical figure because it’s used to determine capital gains and losses for income tax.

CREDIT BUREAU: Also called a “credit reporting agency,” a credit bureau is a company that collects and sells information about a person’s creditworthiness. The three major credit bureaus are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.

CREDIT REPORT: Issued by a credit bureau, a credit report contains information on a person’s payment history, bankruptcies, loans and recent inquiries to obtain credit. By federal law, consumers are entitled to one free credit report once every 12 months from each of the three credit bureaus. Consumers can get their free credit report by going to www.annualcreditreport.com.

CREDIT SCORE: A credit score is a three-digit number that’s designed to predict the likelihood of your repaying a loan. The score is based on a snapshot of your credit report at a particular point in time. The most widely used scores are FICO scores. Lenders can buy FICO scores from all three major credit bureaus.

DIVERSIFICATION: This reduces the risk in your investment portfolio by including a variety of investments, such as U.S. stocks and stocks from other countries, as well as bonds and cash. The rationale behind this technique is that different types of investments will pose a lower risk than any one investment that you hold. Diversification differs from asset allocation in that in asset allocation, you decide what percentage of your money you want to go to stocks, bonds and cash.

DIVIDEND: This is income that a company pays its shareholders and is distributed from a portion of the company’s earnings. It’s typically quoted as a dollar amount per share.

PRICE/EARNINGS RATIO: Also known as the P/E ratio, it’s a stock’s current price divided by the earnings per share. It’s a widely used tool of stock analysis and gives you an idea of how expensive or cheap a stock is.

REBALANCING: Adjusting your investment portfolio to bring it back to your original asset allocation mix. Movements in the stock market can throw your asset allocation out of kilter. For example, if you originally wanted 50 percent stocks and 50 percent bonds in your portfolio, strong performance of your stocks can lift the stock portion of your portfolio to 70 percent. So in order to bring that portion back to 50 percent, you “rebalance” by selling some of your stocks and buying bonds to bring the allocation back to 50/50.

RISK TOLERANCE: An investor’s ability to tolerate declines in the value of his or her investment portfolio.

Bloomberg's David Evans answers questions on insurance stories after a Reynolds Center session. Photo: Linda Austin

TAX DEDUCTION: An expense that’s subtracted from your adjusted gross income and reduces your taxable income. An example is the home mortgage interest deduction. A deduction differs from a tax credit, which is a direct dollar-for-dollar reduction of your tax liability. Examples are the child tax credit and Earned  Income Tax Credit.

TERM LIFE INSURANCE: Term life insurance pays off only if the policyholder dies within a specified time period or “term.” This differs from “whole life insurance,” which provides coverage for your whole life instead of a specified term. A whole life policy also has a savings component called cash value, which builds over time.

TIME HORIZON: The length of time you expect to invest your money before you cash out.

TRUST: A legal vehicle you set up in estate planning that enables you to transfer legal title to an asset to another party, the trustee, who has the duty to hold and manage the asset for the benefit of a beneficiary or beneficiaries. You can use a trust to pass assets to your children, disabled adults, heirs who aren’t good at managing money and any others you believe lack management skills and judgment.

WHAT (and WHO) IS A FINANCIAL ADVISER?

And speaking of trust, Most average investors don’t know the difference among financial advisers. They have enough trouble distinguishing among the alphabet soup of professional designations that advisers put on their business cards.

Business owners learn about balancing personal and business finance.

Investors’ main concern is that when they hire a professional to advise them on their finances, they want to be confident that that person has their best interest in mind.

Most people think there’s no difference between a stockbroker and an investment adviser. While they may use those two terms interchangeably, they are not the same thing.

Brokers and investment advisers are regulated by different standards under federal law when providing investment advice.

Because the average investor doesn’t know the difference, he or she may enter into a business relationship with the wrong assumptions.

Stockbrokers are financial professionals who buy and sell securities on behalf of clients. They’re also known as financial consultants, financial advisers and investment consultants.

Stockbrokers are governed by the “suitability rule,” which means they’re required to recommend investments that are suitable for you based on their knowledge of your financial situation and needs.

Investment advisers, on the other hand, are required to exercise “fiduciary responsibility,” which means they have to put your interests ahead of theirs at all times when providing advice and recommendations.

The term “investment adviser” describes a broad range of people who give advice about securities, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds and annuities. Investment advisers also may go by the titles of investment manager, investment counsel, asset manager, wealth manager or portfolio manager.

Most investment advisers charge a fee based on a percentage of the assets in your account. Typically the larger your account, the lower the percentage.

Trainees use puppets to practice for a 'What Money Means' seminar. Photo: HSBC

Stockbrokers are typically paid through commissions paid each time the broker buys or sells a security for a client.

Since many investors don’t know the difference between investment advisers and brokers, they assume that all financial advisers are always required to put an investor’s best interest first.

Most brokers do have their client’s best interest at heart when making investment recommendations, but they’re not required to meet this standard.

Consumer advocates, financial planners and brokerage industry representatives have said the fiduciary standard should apply to both investment advisers and brokers.

The Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory reform law directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to conduct a study of the effectiveness of current standards for brokers and investment advisers, and whether there are gaps, shortcomings or overlaps in the current regulations.

A SEC study has recommended one fiduciary standard for brokers and investment advisers.

Photo: Mike Baird

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 readers care about.

Here’s how:

• FIND LOCAL ANGLES IN NATIONAL STORIES: Almost any national story will have a local impact. The most recent example is the one swirling around the federal debt ceiling.

President Obama’s warning that a failure to increase the debt limit could delay Social Security checks triggered immediate anxiety among seniors. Our newspaper interviewed local seniors and wrote a story about their worries.

This story could have been done in any community, so when you see a national wire story, ask whether the topic affects anyone where you live.

• INTERACT WITH READERS: They are your best sources for stories. The responses you get to stories may hold the kernel for a great follow-up. When they ask you to write about something, take their concerns seriously and consider whether their idea has news value.
Beat Basics:
MORE on COVERING PERSONAL FINANCE
An introduction
Finding true local angles
A few of the challenges
Glossary of terms, concepts
Resources: Books, guides, organizations

• GET OUT OF THE OFFICE: There’s no substitute for meeting a person face to face. Let them get to know and trust you. If it’s a local PR person, tell them what you’re looking for in a story and build a working relationship so you’ll be the first person they think of when they have a big story.

Photo: Studio de Boos

Their pitch may not always result in a story, but they may know people in your community who could help you chase down a lead.

Visit local investment clubs and meetings at churches that center around investment and money management. Many churches have programs that teach members how to manage their money according to biblical principles.

MEET FINANCIAL PEOPLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY: They can tell you what trends they’re seeing among their clients and what they’re worried about. Building a relationship with financial planners, brokers and financial planners will also help you land that all-important real person on deadline. Once they know you do quality work and are trustworthy, they can convince their client that it’s OK to talk to you.

• ACCEPT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: This is a great way to find good personal finance stories because someone will talk to you afterwards and tell you something about their finances or that of someone they know, and you could have a good story.

• MEET WITH ATTORNEYS WHO SPECIALIZE IN REPRESENTING CONSUMERS/INVESTORS: They can give you a heads up on cases that would make good stories.

• KNOW THE “CONSUMER COPS” IN YOUR COMMUNITY: Is there someone in your police department or district attorney’s office who specializes in consumer cases, such as identity theft?

Also, meet the regulators in your state who regulate investments and key people in the state attorney general’s consumer affairs office.

Get to know your local Better Business Bureau.

Real people, real stories. Photo: Mike Baird

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 affect the finances of our readers.

The challenge is to find fresh angles that readers don’t know about. Sometimes the news of the day helps you with a hook, but most of the time, it takes enterprise and detective work. For example, read the envelope stuffers that credit card companies send card holders. You’d be surprised the hidden stories you’d find just by slogging through the language.

• RELYING TOO MUCH ON THE SAME SOURCES — We all have sources that we’ve worked with for a long time who are dependable and knowledgeable and can be counted on for great quotes. But be careful not to fall into a comfort zone.
Beat Basics:
MORE on COVERING PERSONAL FINANCE
An introduction
Finding true local angles
A few of the challenges
Glossary of terms, concepts
Resources: Books, guides, organizations

Broaden your Rolodex so you have a wide range of opinions and expertise.

• VERIFY, VERIFY, VERIFY — This is something all good reporters know, but it’s always worth repeating. Check your math. Readers will run their calculators and will quickly point out that you were off a decimal point. Always verify a technical fact that a reader tells you. They may be correct, but you don’t want to discover that they were wrong after you’ve reported what they’ve said as fact.

• CHOOSE “REAL PEOPLE” CAREFULLY — Real people are the lifeblood of personal finance stories. They help us put a human face on the sometimes abstract topics we write about. We are often scrambling on deadline to find real people.

But choose them wisely. Make sure they don’t have hidden agendas.

I wrote a story on bartering and found a real person who engaged in it. We had a photo scheduled to be taken of my real person and the merchant with whom he bartered for goods.

The day before the photo shoot, I called the real person to verify the appointment and he suddenly became reluctant to have his picture taken.

It turned out that he didn’t want the IRS to see his picture in the newspaper because he hadn’t reported on his tax return the fair market value of the products he received in the bartering.

Needless to say, I yanked him out of my piece.

• THROWING A BUNCH OF NUMBERS INTO YOUR STORY — You will lose your reader with numbers and statistics that you don’t explain in context. Only include the numbers that are relevant to your story.
  

  Avoid making your story a math problem. Photo: Chris T. Eng

  Then look at whether those numbers have been rising or fluctuating over the long term. That will help you detect trends.

• BE SKEPTICAL OF SO-CALLED “EXPERTS” – When it comes down to it, no one can accurately predict the direction of interest rates and financial markets. Be skeptical of the “expert” who claims he or she has found the financial equivalent of the Fountain of Youth.

• THE STOCK MARKET IS MORE THAN JUST THE DOW – Technology has brought global markets closer together and made it possible for a wealth of investment information and services to be at investors’ fingertips. Some are legitimate and others aren’t.

Don’t get caught up in the hype. Look at historical trends of the global markets and help readers keep a proper perspective.

Teach them that successful investing isn’t about getting in on the next hot stock tip, but it’s about consistently putting your money into a well-diversified portfolio and allowing time to build on that.

Read them not only for knowledge of the content, but for the way the authors boil down complex, complicated material into everyday language. If you can do that, it’s proof that you really know the subject.

The organizations listed will put you in touch with various areas of the personal finance industry and with regulators. Get to know the key players so that they will think of you when they have story tips.

BOOKS AND GUIDES

The Wall Street Journal Guide to the New Rules of Personal Finance: Essential Strategies for Saving, Investing, and Building a Portfolio in a World Turned Upside Down, By Dave Kansas.

The Wall Street Journal Complete Personal Finance Guidebook, by Jeff Opdyke.

Saving for Retirement without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery, by Gail MarksJarvis.

Personal Finance for Dummies, by Eric Tyson.

The Financial Writer’s Stylebook: 1,100 Business Terms Defined and Rated, by Chris Roush and Bill Cloud.

Barron’s Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms, by John Downes and Jordan Elliot Goodman.

Understanding Wall Street, by Jeffrey B. Little and Lucien Rhodes.

Your Credit Score, Your Money & What’s at Stake: How to Improve the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future, By Liz Pulliam Weston.

ORGANIZATIONS

• The Society of American Business Editors and Writers: Founded in 1964, SABEW is the preeminent organization for business journalists in the United States. It counts among its more than 3,000 members the leading business writers, columnists and editors from large international papers, national newspaper chains, wire services, television and magazines.
Beat Basics:
MORE on COVERING PERSONAL FINANCE
An introduction
Finding true local angles
A few of the challenges
Glossary of terms, concepts
Resources: Books, guides, organizations

SABEW holds conferences in the spring and fall that feature major newsmakers and skills programs conducted by the best business journalists in the industry.

• Financial Planning Association: FPA is the organization for personal financial planning experts. This is a good source to find financial planners in your area. The organization has a media training program for its members who want to serve as resources for reporters on personal finance stories.

The press contact is Randy Hildreth, 303-867-7190, or pr@fpanet.org.

• Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards: The board grants the respected CFP certification and also disciplines certified financial planners. You can check whether a planner in your area has a disciplinary history with the board.

Before quoting a planner you’ve just met, you should check whether he or she has been in trouble with the board.

The board’s website also has lots of useful information on financial planning, how to find a planner and what questions to ask a planner you’re considering hiring.

The media contact is Dan Drummond, 202-550-4372, or ddrummond@CFPBoard.org.

• The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority: FINRA is Wall Street’s self-regulatory organization and operates a free service called BrokerCheck that enables investors to check on the disciplinary history of brokers and brokerage firms.

The information you find on BrokerCheck must be understood in the proper context. See this well-written article by The Wall Street Journal: Digging Up Dirt and Deciphering It.

The FINRA media contact is George Smaragdis, (202) 728-8988, or George.Smaragdis@finra.org

• Securities and Exchange Commission: Created by Congress, the SEC regulates the securities markets and protect investors. Its Investor.gov website gives consumers an introduction to the financial markets and investment basics.

It also has information on checking out brokers and investment advisers.

People or firms that get paid to give advice about investing in securities generally must register with either the SEC or the state securities agency where they have their principal place of business.

Photo: Chris Carpenter

Investment advisers who manage $25 million or more in  assets generally must register with the SEC. If they manage less than $25 million, they generally must register with the state securities agency in the state where they have their principal place of business.

Pull the investment adviser’s Form ADV, which they must file  with the SEC and state securities regulators.

The form consists of two parts: Part 1 has information about the adviser’s business, ownership, clients, employees, business practices, affiliations, and any disciplinary events of the adviser or its employees.

Investment adviser filings of Part 1 are available to the public on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website.

Part 2 of the ADV requires investment advisers to prepare narrative brochures written in plain English with information such as the types of advisory services offered, the adviser’s fee schedule, disciplinary information, conflicts of interest, and the educational and business background of management and key advisory personnel of the adviser.

The brochure is the primary disclosure document that investment advisers provide to their clients. When filed, the brochures are also available to the public on the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website.

Again, check out any financial and investment professional before you quote them. It will save you from having to field complaints from readers that you gave credibility to someone who has a checkered past.

The media contact for the SEC is John Nester, (202) 551-4125, or nesterj@sec.gov.

• The North American Securities Administrators Association: (NASAA) represents state securities regulators, who often work with the SEC on investor protection and enforcement cases.  The media contact is Bob Webster, (202) 737-0900, ext. 105, or bw@nasaa.org. It’s directory includes state securities regulators.

• The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association: SIFMA represents securities firms, banks and asset managers.

Press contacts are: Katrina Cavalli, 212-313-1181, or kcavalli@sifma.org, Andrew DeSouza, 202-962-7390, or adesouza@sifma.org, Liz Pierce, 212-313-1173, or lpierce@sifman.org.

Photo: Newton Free Library

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, if any, emergency savings to get them through the crisis.

Two years after the economists declared the recession ended, many consumers feel that the recovery has passed them by. Millions are still unemployed and the average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, has fallen.

Making that worse were rising gasoline and food prices, which ate up any pay raises for most Americans.

Many fortunate enough to find a job discover that they’re not making as much as they did. The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession.

In this climate, readers are turning to personal finance reporters for help in sorting out their financial lives.

PERSONAL FINANCE THEMES: Personal finance spans a range of topics from:

• investing,
• tax planning,
• credit cards,
• student loans, to
• retirement planning.

EDUCATING YOURSELF: One of the best ways to get a firm foundation in personal finance is to take courses in personal financial planning at a local university that offers the certificate program in financial planning. This is the same required coursework for those seeking to obtain the well-respected Certified Financial Planner certification.

The intense program covers fundamentals of financial planning, insurance, investments, retirement, tax and estate planning.

It took me two years to finish the program at the University of Houston, but it was one of the best training I’ve undergone and continues to serve me well in my career.

JARGON-SLASHING: The knowledge will give you a firm foundation on which to talk to financial and investment professionals when you do a personal finance story. You will understand the lingo and concepts and be able to translate those into plain language for your readers.

The key in good personal finance writing is always writing for the reader. You will run across many financial professionals who will speak in industry jargon, but make them translate that into concepts you can understand. If you don’t understand what they’re saying, ask and ask again until it’s clear to you.

It’s the job of reporters who cover personal finance to cut through the industry-speak and make the subject less intimidating.

NOT AN ADVISER: What personal finance reporting isn’t is promoting every new product or service, or being readers’ personal financial adviser. You will find that some readers will send you intimate details of their personal finances and expect you to give them the definitive answer as to what they should do with their money and how they should invest.

Photo by Flickr user amanky

It takes thorough examination of a person’s life before they can receive the right financial advice for them. Giving financial advice isn’t just looking at the numbers. It really should first look at a person’s life goals so an adviser can create a financial plan that will lead to those goals.

That’s beyond the scope of what personal finance reporters can do.

Of course, there are obvious questions you can answer: What’s a credit score, how do I obtain my credit report?

But beyond that, the best way to answer a reader’s question for detailed financial advice is to point out some of the factors they might want to consider and then suggest that they seek out an adviser.

The same thing applies to readers who seek investment and income-tax advice.

TAXING ISSUES: The financial markets are volatile and hard to predict. The one sure thing is that there’s no such thing as high returns without any risk. Help readers maintain a proper, realistic perspective about investment returns and talk them down from the ledge before they throw their money at an investment that promises them double-digit returns when markets are returning a more sober, realistic rate.

Income tax is one of the most complicated subjects you will ever cover. Consider how thick the Internal Revenue Code is and how many times Congress has tried to simplify it and end up making it more confusing.

It’s best to leave individual tax-planning to tax advisers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write stories about how tax changes will affect your readers.

Read your competition and study how they approach stories and find fresh angles. I read The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, SmartMoney, Money Magazine and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine.

FINDING NEW ANGLES: One of the biggest challenges in personal finance reporting is putting a new spin on topics that you will cover over and over again. Many times, breaking news will help with that, but most of the times, you have to be creative and  look beyond what everyone else is writing.

Finally, remember that personal finance affects everyone. When you ask questions, think about what your readers will want to know. Always keeping that in mind will help you serve your readers well.

A list of data-scraping resources was among the tools most requested by our free training attendees. They also often ask for access to a business-terms glossary.

Last year ProPublica reporters Dan Nguyen, Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber decided to apply their collective understanding of both the health care industry and data-scraping by creating a tool for tracking the millions of dollars transferred from drug companies to doctors across the United States.

ProPublica reporters Dan Nguyen, left, Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein. Photo credit: Lars Klove/ProPublica.org

The project is called “Dollars for Docs,” and its database currently includes seven drug companies whose 2009 sales totaled $109 billion and made up approximately 36% of the market share, according to the site.

The initial idea flowed from their experience with existing public datasets and databases, some more cumbersome than others.

“I was writing a data-scraping tutorial and needed a timely example of a source of data that was public, but difficult to use,” Nguyen says. “Pfizer had just published their data on a website that was difficult to analyze beyond searching for individual names, so it was a great example.”

Nguyen, who had used data-scraping tools for simpler projects, found his interested piqued even further when he saw The New York Times tackle the issue of drug companies and their confusing data formats. According to Nguyen, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly said they didn’t make their data easier to download for fear that others would access information, manipulate it and then republish manipulated data.

“That seemed like such a weak excuse,” Nguyen says, “and since the company had been forced to disclose their doctor payments, I felt that it was a worthwhile project to bring more transparency to this issue.”

“Dollars for Docs” covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In addition, ProPublica tracks doctors from the 30 most populous states, who remain in the pay database, despite having been sanctioned or flagged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

So, how can other journalists apply data-scraping to their own beat?

Nguyen encourages beginners who are starting from scratch to try Web-scraping, as its productive results will provide the necessary motivation and incentive to push through the inevitable obstacles.

“I’ve felt that Web-scraping is one of the best ways for journalists and researchers to learn programming,” Nguyen says. “It’s relatively easy, and it’s immediately useful once you get your program working.”

On the Propublica Nerd Blog, Nguyen lists several free and open-source tools that the ProPublica team has used, including Nokogiri, Firebug, Google’s Tesseract and Google Refine.

There are definitely benefits and drawbacks to using open-source software, though Nguyen believes results will vary, and that much of the benefits hinge on how good the software’s supporting community can be.

“You don’t have the paid technical support right out of the box,” Nguyen explains. “But if there’s an active development group, such as the one behind Ruby or Google Refine, you may get fast and useful help in the discussions groups.”

In addition to providing useful tools to check out, Nguyen and the rest of the ProPublica team have published “A Guide to the Guides,” which includes helpful tips and instructions going forward for journalists of all skillsets.

Nguyen recommends that journalists prepare for what they expect to gain from the data-scraping tools they’ll be using. “As in any kind of software development,” Nguyen advises, “it’s always worth it to invest time upfront to really study the kind of data you’ll be collecting, and develop a good process to manage the data and keep track of editing it.”

When “Dollars for Docs” was still in the development stages, the team didn’t know how all of the companies would report their data. Some companies chose to release payment amounts in categories like “consulting” or “speaking,” while others provided a total sum for each doctor.

Nguyen adds, “If you haven’t thought of some way to organize the data that’s flexible enough to handle the different situations, it’s a major pain to backtrack.”

Photo by Flickr user M. Keefe

He credits team members Ornstein and Weber for their experience in working with databases, which helped them maintain the variety of information they received.

“It’s not always possible for everyone in a reporting project to be experts in all the journalistic aspects,” Nguyen says. “But the more holistic everyone is, the easier it is to coordinate the traditional reporting, data-gathering and analysis.”

While today’s technological advancements have made processes like data-scraping more accessible to “the average non-techie,” Nguyen cautions against complacency, saying there needs to be “the same kind of astute curiosity and attention to detail as traditional reporting.”

Nguyen points out that journalists are now able to publish data, while opening it up for others to examine and expand upon with their own resources.

“Before the Internet was a viable publishing platform,” he says, “our printed story would’ve just stated our summary numbers in the lead paragraphs, along with some general graphs. In this case, the data itself is interesting and valuable to the public, researchers and other reporters.”

In regards to the future of data-scraping, Nguyen predicts that, with the overall increase of computer literacy and the continued lowering of barriers across the board, journalists will be able to access even more information digitally.

“The reporters,” he says, “who put in some time to train themselves past an average level of digital competency will always have an edge.”

• Got a minute? Take our mentoring survey.

Maybe you had a mentor early in your career who taught you the skills needed to tackle an in-depth project. Or maybe you’re the one at your media outlet dubbed the go-to person for understanding how to dig deeper into records or craft a perfect story pitch.

If you’ve ever provided guidance to another journalist or have been part of a mentoring relationship, we want to hear from you.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, in conjunction with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, is gathering personal mentoring stories to better understand how to create a collaborative learning environment for business journalists.

But we can’t do it without your help.

Please take our quick survey and share your experiences as a mentor, mentee or both. Your input will help us shape a future mentoring program tailored to the needs of today’s business journalists.

Where’s all this come from? Pew Research: Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim

Pew is a great resource. When you have a few minutes, check out their archives: 2010 Publications. Many of their surveys cover behavior or attitudes towards business or consumer issues. Much of what’s in there is relevant to businesses, business journalists.

While looking around Pew today, I stumbled on the Pew Research News Quiz, a good test for our own knowledge and a somewhat frightening look at what Americans know and don’t know. You can take it yourself.

And it can be a good reminder of how journalists’ work is never done. Under which President was TARP enacted?

An overwhelming proportion of Americans are familiar with Twitter, but struggle in identifying political figures.

The Business Journalists Study 2010 is a groundbreaking survey of 473 business reporters and editors nationwide.

“We talked with hundreds of print, online, wire, broadcast and freelance business journalists, and they expressed optimism about the future of journalism,” said Andrew Leckey, Reynolds Center president and Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

“I found a shocking amount of optimism, grit and determination in those findings,” said professor Tim McGuire, who retired in 2002 as editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. McGuire is the Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism at ASU’s Cronkite School.

“I am convinced the Reynolds study is a seminal piece of work that should make the obituary writers for journalism pause and seriously reflect,” McGuire said.

Specifically, McGuire was surprised that almost a third reported an increase in pay over the past two years and that seven out of 10 business journalists say they are more or just as satisfied with their jobs as they were five years ago. Almost three-fourths plan to stay in journalism for the next five years.

McGuire goes into detail in a post on his blog, McGuire on Media, explaining why this survey is significant to journalism.

“What’s striking in the results is how much more negatively print journalists have been impacted compared with those from other media,” said Linda Austin, executive director of the Reynolds Center. Of the respondents, 139 came from wire services, 135 from print, 88 from broadcast, 67 from freelancing and 44 from online. At almost every experience level, print journalists made less money.

Overall, almost half say they have fewer opportunities for training. “I would urge them to check out the free regional workshops and online training offered by the Reynolds Center at BusinessJournalism.org,” Austin said.

THE FULL STUDY: Business Journalists Study 2010 (PDF)
Respondents averaged 20 years in journalism and 12.8 years as business journalists. They report 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.

ABOUT THE SURVEY
Business Journalists Study 2010 was conducted by the Behavior Research Center Inc. in Phoenix.  The phone survey between April 19 and May 6 has a margin of error of +/-4.6 percent.

ABOUT THE REYNOLDS CENTER

The Reynolds Center is based at ASU. It is funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, which 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.

More than 10,000 journalists have benefited from the Reynolds Center’s free training since 2003. The center’s mission is to help journalists cover business better.

For more information about this report, e-mail Linda Austin, Reynolds Center executive director, or call 602-496-9187.