THIS IS ARCHIVED CONTENT

Visit our new site at BusinessJournalism.org

Reynolds Center Programs Daylong Workshops Online Seminars One-hour Tutorials Barlett & Steele Awards Professors Seminar Strictly Financials Seminar Research Covering Business
Business Beats
Starting Out Business Writing Business Design Business Glossary Ethics Five Questions with... Immigration Series Business Journalism Resources Job Listings Academic Programs Book Listings and Reviews Scholarships Calculators Web Resources Tutorials Article Index Workshop Registration

The Reynolds Center has announced its 2009-10 free workshop schedule.

Select a workshop and register from the drop-down menu below.

Online Seminars

The Reynolds Center registration for Fall 2009 free online seminars.

Subscribe

Hooked on Kindle
By Chris Roush

Tracking the Business Behind the Tomato
By Jonathan Higuera

Five Questions with Bill Choyke
By Jonathan Higuera

Finding the Economy's Silver Lining
By Dick Weiss

Double Whammy: Oil and Housing
By Jennifer Hopfinger

Covering Stock Decline Requires Cool Head

E-mail to a friend Print this article

By Kanupriya Vashisht

The stock market plunge on Wall Street and in world markets last week made investors panicky, but journalists must keep a cool head in reporting the story, say two veteran journalists who follow the market.

"They need to provide the story in the best possible context and not over sensationalize it. We all need to understand this is not the end of the world," said Dave Callaway, editor-in-chief of MarketWatch.

Last week's 4.2 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the market's worst free fall in nearly five years.

To be sure, the decline was news but hardly extraordinary, said Bill Barnhart,financial markets columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

"The main pressure from bosses is to make more of a stock market story than is justified," he added.

Barnhart said the key to writing quickly when the stock market takes a sudden turn -- up or down -- is to keep track of market trends and have a good source list of "real" people who are active investors.

"A good 'oh my gosh' quote from an ordinary investor at the top of a stock market break story often works better than a similar remark from a dial-a-quote expert," he said.

Email this article

Please enter your friend's e-mail address

Please enter your e-mail address

If you would like to include a message, please add it here:

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

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