Humor, Irony Enliven Business Coverage
Reporters from Newsday, St. Petersburg Times, Washington Post Magazine earn recognition
By Dick Weiss
April 17, 2006
My selections for this inaugural edition are three stories that demonstrate beautifully how to use both humor and irony in your work. They blend crisp writing with excellent reporting. All of them touch on the everyday lives of readers in interesting and revelatory ways.
Note: Each headline contains a link so that you can read the stories online. Some sites will require you to register first. It's worth taking the time.
3 Pension gap widens between public, private workers
Tami Luhby, Randi Marshall, Carrie Mason-Draffen and Karin Lipson of Newsday
You can always find a good story by identifying an irony or paradox in the lives of your readers. Newsday has latched onto a fascinating one as it examines what's happening to pensions in both the public and private sector.
In the first of a four-part series, this team of reporters does a masterful job of both explaining how pension funding works and how it affects taxpayers. Sprinkled throughout are quotes that demonstrate the passion that's beginning to build around this issue. "I lost money in the stock market, but nobody is stepping in to pay back my funds," said Joe Licari, who never benefited from a pension fund. "It doesn't seem right to me."
Mark Albright of the St. Petersburg Times
Albright hit a sweet spot with readers when he focused on customer service at big-box stores. It's often appalling, and Albright tells you why. "The pressure to compete with low price discounters like Wal-Mart diverted billions of dollars from the sales floor to backstage logistics to catch up," Albright writes. "It's made more stores look alike, sell the same stuff and skimp on the sales help." Albright then examines what stores have done and can do to get back on their customers' good side. Free food works for me.
Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post
How many business stories have you read recently that could fairly be described as hilarious? That adjective would apply to Weingarten 's piece about "The Great Zucchini," a community college dropout who earns more than $100K a year working a two-day week. His business? Entertaining pre-school kids at birthday parties.
His story did not appear in the business section but in the Washington Post Magazine. I submit this story to you as a way of thinking beyond the usual boundaries. The Great Zucchini is an entrepreneur. You'll find this piece gripping as well as amusing.