2. Key themes
✤ In today’s global financial system, everything is interrelated
✤ Business journalism isn’t just about numbers & money – it’s about
people
✤ But following the money will usually lead you to the news
✤ Business journalism is important, not least because business &
financial events affect all of us
Thursday, 24 January, 13
3. What is business news?
✤ Corporate events
✤ Announcements of economic data
✤ Government policy changes
✤ Profiles of/interviews with government officials, company executives
✤ Financial market activity
✤ How all of the above affect people
Thursday, 24 January, 13
4. Why it matters
✤ Good financial journalism levels the playing field
✤ Helps ensure that ordinary people aren’t at an information
disadvantage
✤ Helps keep companies, governments and big investors honest
✤ Explains how financial & business events affect ordinary people’s
lives
Thursday, 24 January, 13
5. March 24, 2011
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the
total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and
households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E.
The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to
the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most
multinational companies.
Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying
for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits
offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named
John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the
company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes
former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the
tax-writing committees in Congress.
Thursday, 24 January, 13
6. May 6, 2013
By Patricia Callahan, Sam Roe
and Michael Hawthorne
Thursday, 24 January, 13
7. October 25, 2012
Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader
By DAVID BARBOZA
BEIJING — The mother of China’s prime minister was a schoolteacher in northern
China. His father was ordered to tend pigs in one of Mao’s political campaigns. And
during childhood, “my family was extremely poor,” the prime minister, Wen Jiabao,
said in a speech last year.
But now 90, the prime minister’s mother, Yang Zhiyun, not only left poverty behind,
she became outright rich, at least on paper, according to corporate and regulatory
records. Just one investment in her name, in a large Chinese financial services
company, had a value of $120 million five years ago, the records show.
The details of how Ms. Yang, a widow, accumulated such wealth are not known, or
even if she was aware of the holdings in her name. But it happened after her son was
elevated to China’s ruling elite, first in 1998 as vice prime minister and then five years
later as prime minister.
Many relatives of Wen Jiabao, including his son, daughter, younger brother and
brother-in-law, have become extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, an
investigation by The New York Times shows. A review of corporate and regulatory
records indicates that the prime minister’s relatives — some of whom, including his
wife, have a knack for aggressive deal making — have controlled assets worth at least
$2.7 billion.
Thursday, 24 January, 13
8. Learning outcomes
✤ Understand the basic structure ✤ Explain the basic functions of
of a business news story financial markets
✤ Identify financial events worthy ✤ Analyze corporate disclosure
of news coverage documents and identify
newsworthy elements
✤ Explain how companies
function and how they compete ✤ Write a summary of daily
activity in a financial market
✤ Explain the significance of
events such as earnings ✤ Write analytical news stories on
corporate events
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9. What you will be doing
✤ Covering a major Hong Kong or Chinese company
✤ Covering the Hong Kong stock market
✤ Preparing an analytical feature story about a business or financial
topic or trend
Thursday, 24 January, 13
10. Writing assignments
✤ Small-business profile (one from each reporter)
✤ Spot news coverage on a Hong Kong-listed company (at least two
stories)
✤ Daily (closing) comment on the Hong Kong stock market (one)
✤ Proposal for an analytical feature (one)
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12. Assessment Tasks
10%
Spot Stories
Feature Stories 50%
Class Participation 40%
percentage of final grade
Thursday, 24 January, 13
13. Plagiarism
✤ If you are caught passing off the work of others as your own, you will
fail this course.
✤ If you are caught fabricating quotes or facts, you will fail this course.
✤ If you use information, quotes or facts from other people’s writing,
you must clearly cite that person or publication.
Thursday, 24 January, 13
15. Key deadlines
✤ Jan. 31: Review materials on blog; start daily reading assignments
✤ Feb. 7: Spot story assignments begin (see Beat List)
✤ Feb. 21: Proposal for small-business profile due
✤ Feb. 29: Stock market assignments begin (see Beat List)
✤ Mar. 28: Small-business profile due
✤ Apr. 18: Proposal for analytic story due
✤ May 2: Rewrites due
Thursday, 24 January, 13
16. Copy flow
✤ For every spot story, you must post a budget line on the course blog
once you know the topic , including the story slug as the subject,
when you can file, how long the story will be, and whether there will
be any “art” (photos, video, audio, charts, etc.)
✤ For every feature story, you must post a proposal on the course blog. I
will comment on your proposal, and either approve it or ask for more
info
✤ Completed stories should also be posted on the blog
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17. Budget line
Format:
<SLUG>
<BYLINE>
<DATELINE>--<LEDE>
<ESTIMATED LENGTH>. <ART/NO ART>. <FILING TIME>
Example:
sked-HKstocks-jeff
by Jeffrey Timmermans
HONG KONG--Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index declined 1.3%
Tuesday, dragged down by financial shares, amid renewed investor unease
about a possible sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
Estimated length 300 words. No art. Delivery by Dec 11, 9pm
Post on blog in “Budget Line” category
Thursday, 24 January, 13
18. Proposal
Format:
<SLUG>
<BRIEF SUMMARY OF STORY, INCLUDING THE SUBJECT, WHAT THE
SUBJECT DID, AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT. ALSO INCLUDE WHO YOU
WILL INTERVIEW>
<ESTIMATED LENGTH>. <ART/NO ART>. <FILING TIME>
A good proposal is a combination of a lede and a nut
graf, identifies the main interview subjects, and is no
more than five paragraphs.
Post on blog in “Proposal” category
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19. Slug
Format:
<ITEM TYPE>-<STORY TITLE>-<REPORTER NAME>
Examples:
prop-HKU ranking-jeff
sked-HKstocks-jeff
(for a story proposal)
(for a budget line for a
file-HKU ranking-jeff stock comment)
(for a completed story)
Thursday, 24 January, 13
20. Small-business profile: ideas
✤ Specialty shops (fashion, housewares, handicrafts, frame-makers,
wine shop, etc.)
✤ Start-up companies offering interesting or unique services (scan local
Web sites and newspapers for ads)
✤ Small businesses you frequent (not the chain stores like Starbucks, but
a locally owned place)
✤ Market stalls
✤ NO UPSTAIRS BOOKSHOPS!
Thursday, 24 January, 13
21. Small-business profile: proposals
Example 1:
prop-onlinepr-wang
Yage Era Corp. refers to itself as an internet reputation management company or on-line public
relations firm. What they do is delete negative posts or links for their clients. It’s becoming a bigger
business since China began pushing harder on internet censorship. If you search for “professional
post-deleting company”, about 8 million pages are found.
This story will focus on how big the market can be, what legal problems they will face and how they
survive in competition as well as regulations. I will talk to the owners of Yage Era, some customers,
and some traditional PR agencies.
Story will be 800 to 1,000 words. No art. Delivery by Feb. 27, 12pm
Example 2:
prop-cat-stray
The Cat Cafe in TST is a unique Hong Kong establishment where customers can relax with a drink or
a meal alongside one of the dozen or so resident cats. Two months ago, the store lost its restaurant
license. To continue operation, they’ve turned their cafe into a cooking school where customers cook
their own food, making the place even quirkier. I will interview the owner, find out why they lost their
license (health permits?) and whether they expect to get it back, and cross-check the license story
with the relevant government authorities.
About 800 words, plus cute pictures of cats. Delivery Feb. 22, 2pm
Thursday, 24 January, 13
22. Small-business profile: proposals
Example 3:
prop-music therapy-li
Music therapy is very popular in many western countries, while it has a relatively short history in Hong
Kong. So far, there have been only 15 registered music therapists in Hong Kong, and very limited
institutes which offer music therapy to the public.
Pang’s Music Therapy Center is one of the biggest institutes of this field in Hong Kong. The center was
established in 1990 by Pang Ga Wah, the first registered music therapist working in Hong Kong. It
offers treatments both to people with special needs and also to normal ones.
The story will focus on the business side of the therapy center, finding out how many people go there
every year and how much the service charges. Then, it may move to a broader scene to discuss the
demand-supply relationship of such therapy in Hong Kong and possible market trends. The main
theme might be that there has still been much market space in the music therapy area, which could be
a promising industry.
Besides the center itself, I will interview a few members of Hong Kong Music Therapy Association as
well.
Estimate length at 800 words, no art
Delivery by Feb. 22, 12:00pm
Post on blog in “Proposal” category
Thursday, 24 January, 13
23. Spot/market comment model
✤ Change: What happened? What changed?
✤ Cause: Why?
✤ Expectations: What was expected to happen?
✤ Context: Is this the first? Only? Biggest? Consistent with others?
✤ Comment: What are people saying about it? Get quotes.
✤ Future: What is likely to happen next?
Thursday, 24 January, 13
24. WSJ feature model
✤ Lede: Summarizes the main point of the story, sometimes with a
narrative or anecdote
✤ Nut: The “so what”; why we should care about the story
✤ Gut: History (how did we get to this point), Scope (how common is
this topic/trend/event), Relevance (link to other topics/trends/
events), Impact (who gains and who loses)
✤ Kicker: Ties up the story neatly by reinforcing the lede and leaves the
reader something else to think about, often with a quote
Thursday, 24 January, 13
25. In Texas, There's No Business Like 'Going Out of Business' --- Owner
Alters Rug Shop's Controversial Name But the Haggling Goes On and On
By Barry Newman
DALLAS -- When Cyrus Hassankola moved to Dallas a couple of years ago, after successfully
going out of business in several locales, he decided to settle down and go out of business
permanently.
Lede
"The response was good from day one," the carpet salesman says.
Customers rooting through the stacks of oriental rugs in the store he opened on a busy road in
North Dallas would sometimes say how sorry they were that he was going out of business. "We're
not," Mr. Hassankola told them. "It's just the name of the store."
A business literally called "Going Out of Business" didn't sit well in some quarters, one of them the
Texas Attorney General's office. So Mr. Hassankola -- for a limited time only -- has stopped going
out of business.
Now he's running regular "total liquidations" that "beat every going-out-of-business price." In his
vocation, this is established practice. But the arrival of hard times has thrown the survival of the
going-out-of-business model into doubt. Everybody else is slashing prices as if there's no
tomorrow. Old-line going-out-of-business businesses are lost in the crowd.
And their best customer -- the American trained to pay the advertised price -- has taken to Nut
haggling. America's Research Group, a South Carolina pollster, says 72% of 1,000 consumers
interviewed in February have haggled in the past year (31% is the historical average) and they've
gotten deals 80% of the time; last year, only half the retailers they took a shot at caved in. Mr.
Hassankola spots the trend whenever he rolls out a rug.
Thursday, 24 January, 13
26. and the kicker...
But Mr. Hassankola has more to come. He has heard that his building soon
may finally be torn down. He's already scouting for new locations -- and
making plans for a grand-opening sale.
The end.
Thursday, 24 January, 13
27. Assignment for Jan. 31
✤ Read the Filing Guidelines and Reporting Guidelines on the blog
✤ Read the Syllabus
✤ Read the assigned reading on the course blog
✤ Start reading local business news, and stock market comments
✤ Start thinking about possible small businesses to profile
Thursday, 24 January, 13
