Student's Work Shames Business Press

By Chris Roush
March 28, 2007

There are days when I get tears of joy in my eyes thinking about the future of business journalism.

Consider the following e-mail I received from one of my students. It stated: "Just read the amended S-4 for the Smithfield Foods/Premium Standard Farms merger and it's amazing. I love the amended S-4. It has a blow-by-blow recounting of the lead up to the merger agreement, which includes every meeting and conference call. ... Good stuff."

Wow. It's that kind of gung-ho attitude about reading SEC filings -- in his spare time no less, not for a class assignment -- that just warms my heart and makes me think that business journalism is in good hands down the road. I looked at the filing, and the student is right. There is a strong story in this filing about how this deal was negotiated, including that there was another bidder for Premium and that Smithfield raised its offer three times last year before Premium agreed to a deal.

But then I start to think about the current state of the industry, and then I do some research and discover that none of the business reporters at any of the papers in the two states -- Virginia and Missouri -- where these companies are located have bothered to write this follow-up story to a $675 million deal, much less read the filing. None of the wire services have picked it up either, as near as I can tell.

Hey, these are the two largest pork producers in the country, and they want to combine operations. Combined, they'd have more than $12 billion in revenue and employ more than 55,000 workers. Why isn't any business reporter paying attention?

My guess is this: Most business desks, if you excuse the pun, have been cut to the bone. They're short-staffed, and they no longer have the time to wade through SEC filings looking for stories. Their reporters are also being merged with metro desks and being asked to work weekends.

The reporters that remain are too busy chasing other stories that have to be written that day to fill up the section. Their bosses -- not the business editor, but others in the hierarchy -- probably don't want them reading time-consuming documents that may -- or may not -- lead to a story.

Because part of my job is to show students examples of how great stories can come from public records, I've encountered too many examples of SEC filings which uncovered stories in recent years to think this is an isolated incident.

If we're missing stories like this by not reading SEC filings -- either because we don't have the time or we don't want to -- then I think I need to go sit in the corner and have a good cry.