This just in from our friends in Washington. It seems that the Bureau of Economic Analysis www.bea.gov will be launching the GDP by state and Metro Statistical Area in early June. The data will allow biz journalists to closely monitor the economic output of their city or state, thanks to this compilation of IRS, Census and state data.
Speaking of Census, the data wonks there keep pouring stats into their relatively new Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics database. Recent additions are Alaska, Georgia, Mississippi and Utah. To access this mappable and searchable database, go to http://lehd.dsd.census.gov/led/
--Marty Steffens
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
"Human" side of reporting
Sometimes business reporters on deadline are snared in the phone tree of major businesses or organizations.
A website may help. It's called, Get Human, www.gethuman.com/us and while it's designed for consumer to get through to a live human being to demand better service, it's useful for the media as well. It lists actual phone numbers for companies in the US, plus instructions on how to fool the phone tree into giving you a live human to direct your call. There are also versions for the UK and Canada.
BTW, the site was founded and is copyrighted by Paul English, a Boston area consumer advocate and tech whiz who started it out of frustration.
--Marty Steffens
Monday, March 5, 2007
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
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
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Business, the converged media
It seems that the ultimate downside of getting rid of stock agate is that it has downgraded business sections. I just heard from biz ed Karen Miller that the Reading (PA) Eagle has moved its business section inside the paper most days. Yes, behind Sports once again.
And of course, now business staffs are disappearing into the metro fold, as has happened at the Indianapolis Star and Honolulu Advertisers. Of course, this might also infuse more economics into metro coverage, but my concern is that real coverage of business will be lost in favor of a beefed up metro team.
Another trend is for business editors to move into the digital ranks. Russ Stanton of the LATimes moved from business editor post to the new job of Innovation Editor, responsible for a digital thinking at the Times. And I just heard that Jeff Platsky, longtime award-winning biz editor in Binghamton, is moving to a new Digital Editor position at PressConnects, the paper's digital arm. It's possible his old business staff will be absorbed into metro as yet another Gannett paper reshapes itself.
Why does it seem that business editors make the digital turn faster than others in the newsroom? First, the demand for timely business news has always met that biz editors got the need for speed in an online environment. Business news has a lot of models for converged publications such as Bloomberg, Reuters, BusinessWeek and Marketwatch. Even luddite newspapers put stock quotes on telephone service or on the web before they moved other news to it.
Stay tuned, the changes in business sections -- moving inside or going away -- will be the talk of 2007.
--Marty Steffens
And of course, now business staffs are disappearing into the metro fold, as has happened at the Indianapolis Star and Honolulu Advertisers. Of course, this might also infuse more economics into metro coverage, but my concern is that real coverage of business will be lost in favor of a beefed up metro team.
Another trend is for business editors to move into the digital ranks. Russ Stanton of the LATimes moved from business editor post to the new job of Innovation Editor, responsible for a digital thinking at the Times. And I just heard that Jeff Platsky, longtime award-winning biz editor in Binghamton, is moving to a new Digital Editor position at PressConnects, the paper's digital arm. It's possible his old business staff will be absorbed into metro as yet another Gannett paper reshapes itself.
Why does it seem that business editors make the digital turn faster than others in the newsroom? First, the demand for timely business news has always met that biz editors got the need for speed in an online environment. Business news has a lot of models for converged publications such as Bloomberg, Reuters, BusinessWeek and Marketwatch. Even luddite newspapers put stock quotes on telephone service or on the web before they moved other news to it.
Stay tuned, the changes in business sections -- moving inside or going away -- will be the talk of 2007.
--Marty Steffens
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Business news, once again, is change agent
We've often said that business news is helping to drive the move to converged news models. Bloomberg, Reuters, Marketwatch, BusinessWeek, MSN Money and others have run multimedia operations for years.
Now business news is once again a catalyst for change in how we look at counting the number of visitors to websites. Finance users, like those who use Yahoo! Finance, view pages over long periods of time -- if an investor is using it to track a moving stock, the page might be up during the entire trading day -- yet be counted only as one page view. Talk about "sticky!"
The financial web client is a high-value target for advertisers, and new measurements must come into play to monetize business news web sites. Do check out a great piece on this issue by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun. Here's the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/254637,CST-FIN-webads13.article
--Marty Steffens
Now business news is once again a catalyst for change in how we look at counting the number of visitors to websites. Finance users, like those who use Yahoo! Finance, view pages over long periods of time -- if an investor is using it to track a moving stock, the page might be up during the entire trading day -- yet be counted only as one page view. Talk about "sticky!"
The financial web client is a high-value target for advertisers, and new measurements must come into play to monetize business news web sites. Do check out a great piece on this issue by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun. Here's the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/254637,CST-FIN-webads13.article
--Marty Steffens
Business news, once again is change agent
We've often said that business news is helping to drive the move to converged news models. Bloomberg, Reuters, Marketwatch, BusinessWeek, MSN Money and others have run multimedia operations for years.
Now business news is once again a catalyst for change in how we look at counting the number of visitors to websites. Finance users, like those who use Yahoo! Finance, view pages over long periods of time -- if an investor is using it to track a moving stock, the page might be up during the entire trading day -- yet be counted only as one page view. Talk about "sticky!"
The financial web client is a high-value target for advertisers, and new measurements must come into play to monetize business news web sites. Do check out a great piece on this issue by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun. Here's the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/254637,CST-FIN-webads13.article
--Marty Steffens
Now business news is once again a catalyst for change in how we look at counting the number of visitors to websites. Finance users, like those who use Yahoo! Finance, view pages over long periods of time -- if an investor is using it to track a moving stock, the page might be up during the entire trading day -- yet be counted only as one page view. Talk about "sticky!"
The financial web client is a high-value target for advertisers, and new measurements must come into play to monetize business news web sites. Do check out a great piece on this issue by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun. Here's the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/254637,CST-FIN-webads13.article
--Marty Steffens
Thursday, February 8, 2007
New twist on Googling yourself...
Okay, we admit it. We've all "Googled" ourselves.
Many of us have typed our names into multiple search engines to discover just what personal asteroids are orbiting in cyberspace. It usually yields a surprise -- like the photo I found of my lecture in Taichung, Taiwan, on enviro-business journalism.
Today, while researching a fellow journalist who's going to be a guest speaker in my business journalism class, I typed his name into Scholar.Google. Up popped pages of scholarly work where the academic author had cited news stories that he had written. This journalist, a magazine author, was cited in dozens of journals and conference papers, on topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Economic Reform.
So I Scholar-Googled myself and found where I'd been thanked or cited in some books, as well. Some I knew about, others were a big surprise.
So, fellow journalists, if you want to see when and where your journalistic work has been cited, just call up www.scholar.google.com and search away.
--Marty Steffens
Many of us have typed our names into multiple search engines to discover just what personal asteroids are orbiting in cyberspace. It usually yields a surprise -- like the photo I found of my lecture in Taichung, Taiwan, on enviro-business journalism.
Today, while researching a fellow journalist who's going to be a guest speaker in my business journalism class, I typed his name into Scholar.Google. Up popped pages of scholarly work where the academic author had cited news stories that he had written. This journalist, a magazine author, was cited in dozens of journals and conference papers, on topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Economic Reform.
So I Scholar-Googled myself and found where I'd been thanked or cited in some books, as well. Some I knew about, others were a big surprise.
So, fellow journalists, if you want to see when and where your journalistic work has been cited, just call up www.scholar.google.com and search away.
--Marty Steffens
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