Books for Developing Business Journalism Savvy

By Andre Jackson
October 9, 2008 04:49 PM

You might find useful some of the following books that clutter the top of my own desk:

• In these days of financial meltdowns, I often find myself referring to a worn copy of Barron’s “Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms.” It will give you short, simple definitions of commonly-used terms.
• I actually have three copies from various years of the pocket-sized “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money & Investing.” This slim, but power-packed goody is the fastest way to understand the difference between a market index (like the Standard & Poor’s 500) and an average (the familiar Dow Jones Industrial Average being the gold-standard example).
• “The Math of Money,” by Morton D. Davis, is targeted toward people seeking to understand more about the numbers and formulas undergirding personal finance and investments. Even so, it’s a handy, informative explainer about many topics in the economic realm.
• “Understanding Financial Statements: A Journalist’s Guide,” by Jay Taparia, will lead you into an understanding of the financial statements public companies must file. Here you’ll learn why the numbers you read about from the oft-quoted “balance sheet” probably don’t even come from that document.
• Just for grins, if you’ve got time on your hands and want to understand the thinking of the giants of economic theory, such as the famed Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes, then pick up (with both hands -- at 1,472 pages, it’s quite a hefty tome) “The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six Classics of Economics.” Reading it, you’ll learn that the 18th century’s Adam Smith, frequently quoted by conservatives, actually wrote that people should be taxed “in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.” Such surprises and more await you within.

* Andre Jackson is senior editor, business, federal and state at the Altanta Journal-Constitution

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