Getting the message about business reporting

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- Here at the HBCU 2007 Newspaper and Conference Fair, the word is getting out about the good jobs in business reporting.

With an uncertain job market ahead, students were listening when SABEW came calling to talk about business journalism as a profession. And next year, in Baltimore, there will be a half-day workshop at the 10th annual HBCU Newspaper conference.

I did a workshop on what types of campus stories that students could do that are business related. One ideas was writing about the big business of campus fund-raising, and how campus treat this new generation of donors.

After the conference, I got an email from Darryl B. Manning, staff writer for the Lincoln University Clarion, one of the participants in my business writing workshop in Florida. He's doing a story on big donors to Lincoln, an historically black college in Jefferson City, Mo.

Business journalism needs more minority voices. If we don't increase the diversity in business reporting, then we won't make business reporting interested to a wider community. As it is, business is a white guys club, and diversity in business and in the business journalism profession will only make us stronger.

We'll write more on our diversity outreach efforts in the future.

--Marty Steffens