From Metro to Business

By Jonathan Higuera
December 17, 2007 05:25 PM

Asjylyn Loder never wanted to cover politics or business. Today, she covers energy on the business desk for the St. Petersburg Times.

Tim Steller, a former immigration reporter at the Arizona Daily Star, moved to the business desk in 2003 to cover economic development. He's now the business editor.

And Blanca Torres of the Contra Costa Times parlayed her interest in business issues into several business reporting positions but only after a number of metro reporting internships.

All three illustrate a common scenario in newsrooms across the country: reporters migrating to the business desk after working in other sections, mostly metro. Such migration is by no means one way, but for those who are moving toward the business beat rather than away from it, the transition can often seem more challenging.

All three mentioned the desire to have a better grasp on understanding financials, even accounting procedures, and learning the language of business.

"You should look at numbers as your friends," said Torres, who covers retail for the Contra Costa Times in Northern California. "They can tell a story but you have to put them into context...It's important to understand what numbers actually tell the reader so you don't end up using numbers that a public relations firm throws at you."

Torres said one of her metro internships involved covering education, which led to frequent budget stories and made her more comfortable in dealing with numbers. "It got me into the mentality of following money, where it comes from, how is it spent and what do people think about how it was spent."

Steller also would have liked to have had a stronger background in financials and accounting before stepping into his business role. Instead, he made it a priority to build skills quickly by attending business journalism workshops and studying business books.

"I had some inclination toward stories involving money and the workplace," he said, reeling off some of the topics he covered while on the immigration beat such as utility lines along the border, energy integration along the border and border trucking issues. "But I didn't realize I was stepping into a whole new orbit with a different vocabulary and expectations."

He now encourages other reporters to consider a move to the business desk.

"The trepidation many reporters have of moving to business is that they don't understand it and they think it is boring. But it's not true. You can take these business beats in any direction. It's stories about people doing things, abusing power, people's pocketbooks."

Loder had been covering county government in Florida, and before that in New Jersey, for several years before moving into her energy beat in July. She had to apply for the position, which is somewhat ironic considering that when she started in journalism she vowed never to cover business.

She's still adjusting to her new post, but already Loder's stories have run on the front page and on the metro section cover. One was on a nuclear power plant coming to the area, the other on clean-burning coal.

"We're writing for ordinary newspaper readers more than Wall Street," she said. "If I had gone to a place more attuned to the financial side, it may have been more difficult. We're not covering stock prices, financial reports and dividends." Still, she dives into technical information to make it more understandable to readers.

All three journalists say they actively draw from the reporting experience they had as metro reporters to make their business stories more relevant and readable.

"It's a business section so certainly there are angles that we cover that the metro desk would not be interested in," said Loder. "But for me, it could have just as easily been a beat in the metro section."

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