Staffing Solution

By Chris Roush
December 5, 2008

Across the country, business news desks are losing reporters and editors to buyouts and layoffs. Many good people are suddenly gone.

How can a business editor continue to produce a quality section with fewer staff members?

At my local paper, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, which is down four reporters since the beginning of the year due to buyouts, layoffs and retirements, business editor Mary Cornatzer and assistant business editor Alan Wolf are now writing stories and columns. It gives them less time to edit and coach reporters in shaping other coverage, however.

The overall quality of the section, I’d argue, is down because they’re spreading themselves too thin, even though they’re top-notch journalists doing the best job possible.

Here’s a suggestion that would alleviate at least the manpower issue on many business news desks: Go to your local college and recruit journalism students to write some stories.

I’m not talking about earnings stories, management changes or digging into SEC filings. What I’m suggesting is that the time-intensive, shoe-leather business news stories such as covering Black Friday or how gas prices are affecting personal spending can be covered by university juniors and seniors – with some coaching.

Last week, I told my 20 students in “Economics Reporting” to go cover Black Friday. I gave them little guidance other than to mandate that the latest retail sales figures from the Commerce Department and Christmas sales projections from the National Retail Federation be included in their stories.

A majority of the stories turned in by the students were publishable material. Some went to outlet malls that opened at midnight. One tracked a J. Crew personal shopper for the day. Another saw shoppers taking sips from flasks. Those different perspectives about Christmas shopping opened my eyes after reading the same, humdrum stories in most media outlets.

Pay them $25 or $50 an article to write for you. Most of them are going to be happy they’re getting a byline in the local daily. Those clips will help them get internships and jobs when they graduate.

More important is what such a recruiting tactic will mean to the future of business journalism. Few of these journalism majors have likely considered a career writing business stories.

But dangling the carrot of stories that might appear on the front page is enticing. And the experience might convince a few of them to continue in business journalism.

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