Financial Journalism

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Financial Journalism

• Overview
• Jan 21, 2002

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Financial Journalism

• Understanding the subject you are writing about
• Knowing how to ask the right questions
• Recognizing newsworthy answers
• Writing in a way that readers without specialized
  knowledge will understand

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Why Financial Journalism

• Democratization of the financial markets
• More people invest in the mkts
• Proliferation of investment choices
• Fascination with new wealth, instant fortune
• IT revolution information-distribution power -gt
  accessibility, customizability and immediacy

4
Business Angle of traditional news

• Air crash
• Oil spill
• War, coup, election
• Vatican
• IT boom
• Science and health

5
Business news in global context

• Post Cold War international news is increasingly
  focused on business.
• China, Russia as big markets.
• Intl cross-border trade and direct foreign
  investments.
• Pension funds puts money in overseas cos.
• US pension funds invested 4 assets abroad in
  1990 and the proportion increased to 14 in 2000.
  

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Dont Forget

• Basic journalistic skills sets accuracy,
  accountability, fairness
• Ethical standards

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New Financial Journalism

• More demanding audience
• User-friendly
• Higher standard on Relevance, Timeliness,
  Context, Analysis
• Information overload -- needs branding and
  product differentiation to win reader loyalty

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Responsibility

• Write for your readers
• Beware of cheerleading
• Skepticism -- When things sound too good to be
  true, its most likely to be untrue
• Understand peoples motives and constraints they
  are under.

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HK Financial and Business

• Demand for Asian financial news
• Yens sharp appreciation (and recent decline)
• Dragons and Tigers
• Asian financial crisis
• Emerging economies become big markets for
  consumer goods.
• Focus on questionable labor practices

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Risk

• Risk and return on investment
• risk adjusted returns on investment
• Understand and properly explain Risk.
• Why disasters were under-reported before they
  became full-blown crisis?

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Nuts and Bolts

• Research skills using data base, published
  records, talking to sources, etc.
• Explanatory journalism
• Forward spin

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Types of business stories

• Hard news company announcements, earnings
  reports, strikes, accidents, etc.
• Follow-ups
• Backgrounders why it happens, how it happens
• Profiles
• Trends and analysis

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Business stories (cond)

• Tips for investing wisely and avoiding frauds
• Corruption -- Holding the government and business
  accountable

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Working with Sources

• Your story is only as good as your sources
• Company officials
• Analysts
• Academic experts
• Former employees
• Labor leaders
• Competitors

15
Balance

• Liberaljournalists vs Conservativesources
• News vs editorial
• Should financial journalism be regulated?