Business Makes the Story Go Round

By Vandana Sinha
July 15, 2004 03:30 PM

Behind every successful news headline, there's a business story.

Money is the seed of American society -- sometimes to a fault, but that's fodder for another column. Whether the major barstool topic of the day is about schools, politics, foreign relations or even, well, the best beer, dollar bills will most always dominate the discussion in some way or another.

Education is built upon grades of industries, from the one that makes the graphing calculators the kids use in math class to the one that writes the Cliff Notes they're not supposed to use in English class. The undercurrent of politics is money, flowing from campaign contributions to appropriations. Foreign relations? There's trade, globalization, the cost of war and can we even talk anymore about international relations without mentioning outsourcing?

And of course, the best beer invariably comes down to what tastes great, costs less and has the most memorable -- often meaning the most expensive -- commercials.

So, that brings us right back to the business story, how it permeates most everything we see, hear, feel and taste. And read.

To find that business angle, think of that most astute of intellects: Jerry Maguire in the film of the same name. Yes, we all swooned at that "You complete me" line, but the more important and relevant catchphrase for business reporters here is: "Show me the money." (Go on, you know you want to yell it out.)

Follow that green-paper road to each constituency caught up in a story. See who's paying the bills and what they're buying, who's booking the payment and who's using the product.

Think about the industries behind everything, from birth (baby products, registries) to death (funerals, insurance) and everything in between. How are those industries changing? How are the industry leaders adapting?

How are different factors affecting the economy? Because, frankly, everything ultimately touches the economy, from the death of our Founding Fathers to the birth of Jesus Christ. Remember, in this country, holidays are moneymakers and nonprofits are fund-raisers.

If you don't see those economic connections yourself, don't be afraid to nudge someone else. Discuss a general news story with your colleagues, with your editors, with your economically minded friends. Maybe they can show you the money.

"I talk to analysts," suggests Mark Gongloff, senior writer at CNN/Money. "Sometimes it's just a simple matter of asking them what the angle may be."

In addition to Wall Street analysts, economists and think tanks, Gongloff says he'll pay attention to economist blogs to read about the financial deep thoughts of the day. Though, he takes both blogs and analysts with several grains of salt and hours of added research -- both can end up showing a bias that don't belong in his stories.

Often times, he knows the financial angle he wants to chase with them. Other times, he says, "I'll just ask a general question, and let them ramble on."

Luckily for us business journalists, many of the top news stories of late have been business stories: corporate scandal, unemployment, recession and more recently, interest rates. So a growing number of bylines on the almighty Front Page already hail from yonder business desk.

Doubly luckily for us, now that business is becoming a larger part of everyday lives, the business angles of many other national news stories make themselves known rather quickly.

The news story of the millennium came crashing down on newsrooms on Sept. 11, 2001. The economic impact was immediately clear, even if its extent wasn't. Stories immediately followed on the markets closing, airlines grounding and telecommunications lines clogging.

Other business stories trickled in afterward about the insurance industry's struggles to make up costs, the need for established corporate disaster response plans and the rising trend in teleconferencing as a replacement for in-person, cross-country business meetings (a follow-up punch to the airline industry).

Since then, in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, business writers are talking about not only costs, but also implications for oil prices, markets and government reconstruction contracts. They're describing new technologies on desert battlegrounds and speculating about effects on foreign trade.

The Abu Ghraib prison horrors shoved the reluctant contractors under the political and media spotlight, raising questions about hiring and oversight practices of employees in Iraq. Stories questioned the privatization of military work and narrated the stock slide of companies who sent employees to the war-shredded country.

The publicized transition of power into Iraqi hands further birthed business angles: How will new leaders stabilize Iraq's economy? What will happen to oil prices now? Will the country pay off its billions-dollar debt? Where is investor confidence in the new Iraqi regime?

Paul Richter, a reporter with The Los Angeles Times, for one, has dug into whether American businesses now view Iraq as viable terrain for expansion ("Investors not Rushing into Iraq," which presumably answers that question) and whether foreign countries have provided the reconstruction aid they promised months before ("Nations Slow to Deliver Aid," again a response in and of itself).

Another major news headline of recent weeks -- Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry naming ex-Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards as running mate -- offered an economic angle wide enough to be a straight line (For more, see my BusinessJournalism.org article). Edwards relied on the economic divide as his trademark campaign complaint. Kerry used it to unite the two former rivals on one Democratic ticket, as stories from The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star to The Wall Street Journal pointed out.

Even Janet Jackson's surprise Super Bowl strip uncovered business stories on entertainment conglomerates bending to newly rigid FCC rules on decency. The "Friends" finale roped in millions in advertising -- and dozens of business reporters writing about it.

But those may have been anomalies. Once in a while, business reporters confront national news stories that read more like public mania than legitimate data. They appear on CNN, but better belong on "Entertainment Tonight." Gongloff points to the Lacy Peterson murder. "Everyone was absolutely obsessed with this story, but it has absolutely zero business angle," he says. So an unsuccessful hunt for one leads to zero business stories. "We just don't do it," he adds.

More often than not, though, whether behind the scenes or center stage, business is the choreographer of America's life story.

And we are the critics, capturing those nuances and evaluating the effects.

CNN/Money Senior Writer Mark Gongloff checks blogs by:

• Brad DeLong
• Max Sawicky
• Megan McArdle
• Donald Luskin

But he reminds reporters to be careful of possible bias and inaccuracy in blogs!

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism