Pam Luecke presents "Assignments that Build Skills" during the annual 2012 Reynolds Business Journalism Seminars, hosted by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
For more information about free training for business journalists, please visit businessjournalism.org.
1. Assignments
that Build Skills
REYNOLDS BUSINESS JOURNALISM WEEK
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
JANUARY 2012
2. Goals:
How to teach business journalism in a town of any
size
How to get 20-year-olds to care about business
How to demystify business and economics
How to get beyond basic speech/press conference
stories
How to have a little fun in class
3. 12 ACEJMC skills and competencies
Business journalism assignments can address many of these!
1. demonstrate an understanding of the history and role of professionals and
institutions in shaping communications;
2. demonstrate an understanding of the diversity of peoples and cultures and of the
significance and impact of mass communications in a global society;
3. demonstrate an understanding of professional ethical principles and work ethically
in pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness and diversity;
4. think critically, creatively and independently;
5. write correctly and clearly in forms and styles appropriate for the communications
professions, audiences and purposes they serve;
6. apply basic numerical and statistical concepts;
4. 1. History and role of professions
Magazine Tracking
Assign each student a different publication to follow for the
term
In addition to content, have students report on
ownership, audited circulation, online strategies, internship
possibilities
Require oral presentation, one-page fact sheet and “memo to
an executive”
Arrange presentations chronologically, beginning with “The
Economist”
5. Variations
Have class complete market analysis after
presentations
Propose a NEW business magazine to fill an unfilled niche
Which magazine will be next to fold?
Substitute business television shows and websites
Include Wall Street Week (Rukeyser), even though it’s no
longer on
Have students show representative segments
6. Variations, continued
Follow economists’ blogs
Forbes’ list of econoblogs:
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/category.jhtml?id=307
About.com list:
http://economics.about.com/od/interestingandfunny/tp/economi
cs_blogs.htm
WSJ top 25:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124768581740247061.html
Keep your own class blog
http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1
7. Skills learned
Media history
Media economics
Business communication skills
Oral presentation skills
8. 2. Diversity and global society
“Working” assignment
Discuss Studs Terkel’s 1974 book:
Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How
They Feel About What They Do.
Play excerpts from interviews with him
Ask each student to identify a person outside of the university
orbit to interview about how he or she feels about work
Record interview
Turn in unedited AND edited transcript
Discuss in class – have each read an excerpt
Post their edited transcripts:
W&L web site
9. Resources for “Working”
NPR story about Terkel’s tapes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3892
055
Terkel Interview
http://www.studsterkel.org/index.html
New York Times “American Album”
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/album_index.html
Marketplace
“Day in a Worklife”
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/day-work-life-jingle-
writer
10. Variations
Encourage video interviews
Require photos of interview subjects
Allow students to work in pairs
Put more limitations on choices to drive home
particular learning objectives:
Hourly workers
Racial diversity
Manufacturing jobs
Older workers
Laid off workers
11. Skills learned
Interviewing techniques
Oral history techniques
Listening skills
Gets students outside of comfort zones
Grass roots perspective on business community
12. Tips
Assignment is deceptively simple
Be explicit about grading criteria
Selection of interview subject
Ability to draw person out on the topic
Skill at editing the transcript
Ask students to come up with story ideas from the
interviews
13. 3. Professional ethics
Plan One
Give students names of business journalists to research, e.g.:
R. Foster Winans
Lou Dobbs
Dan Dorfman
Chris Nolan (San Jose Mercury-News)
Chiquita stories, Cincinnati Enquirer
Give an oral and/or written report that:
Describes fully the circumstances that led to the ethical dilemma and what the
person did.
Describes what happened to the journalist as an immediate result of his
actions.
Describes what the key ethical principles were in this case and whether you
agree with how it was handled.
Updates us on where the person is now.
Discusses the implications (if any) this case has for business journalists today.
14. Professional Ethics
Plan Two
Distribute SABEW ethics code
Develop real-life ethical scenarios and pose them to individual
students or teams
Examples:
Flowers from a source
Dating a source
Acting on a stock tip
Who pays for lunch
Free airplane trip/tickets/samples
Acting early on information in your publication’s ads
Investing in stocks of local companies, sector funds, etc.
15. Professional Ethics
Plan Three
Role of the financial press in the economic cycle
Federal Reserve article: “Consumer Sentiment and the
Media?”
http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2004/el200
4-29.html
“Dot Con”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dotcon/
Telegraph column:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/4
109557/Media-is-partly-to-blame-for-the-recession.html
16. 4. Think critically
Enron
Have students watch DVD of “Enron: Smartest Guys in the
Room” (or, heaven forbid, read the book!)
Write essay arguing a point of view:
Focus on transgressions of one “culprit”
Was this a “perfect storm?”
Compare/contrast with Fall 2008 meltdown
Role of the press
Devote a class to discussion
17. Other meaty movies
“The Insider”
Role of a watchdog
Can link to discussion of “whistleblowers” as sources
“Wall Street” and “Wall Street II”
First one is dated, but a classic
Debate “greed is good” and business ethics
Changes in technology and the role of the press
“Social Network”
Business Strategy
“Margin Call”
18. Other meaty books
“The Travels of a T-shirt in a Global Economy,”
Pietra Rivoli
Good introduction to globalization and trade
Aimed at college students
“Nickeled and Dimed,” Barbara Ehrenreich
Insights into issues of wages, benefits, Wal-Mart
“The Selling of the American Dream,” Micheline
Maynard
“Boomerang,” Michael Lewis
Global dimensions of recent financial crisis
19. 5. Write clearly and professionally
Final journalistic story
Major story on a public company with ties to your community
Expect students to use all skills covered during the term
Teach the process
Describe assignment early in term
Require story pitches and likely source list
Require a story conference with you
Ask for a second, more developed story proposal
First draft – graded!
Peer editing of drafts
Final draft
20. Variations
Spend a class or two on story organization
Devote a class to students’ oral descriptions of story
focus and reporting obstacles
Have entire class do final story on the same
company:
Collaborators on key interviews
Competitors on final stories
Grade on originality of angle
22. 6. Apply numerical concepts
Deadline earnings exercise
Go to Yahoo Finance calendar for earnings or conference calls
http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/
Pick a company you’ve heard of that is releasing earnings at a
convenient time AND having a conference call
Give students the company’s press release
Require a cogent story in 55 minutes that includes comment
from the CEO’s conference call
23. Variations
Play conference call in class
Let students do exercise as a take-home
Give them a choice of companies
Have deadline competition for Blackberry “alert”
Note: A controlled earnings exercise in advance in
advisable
24. 7. Other assignments
a) SEC Scavenger hunt
b) Retail round-up
c) Humanizing an economic indicator
d) Profile of Fed chairman
e) Closet survey
25. a) SEC Scavenger Hunt
Pick a company of local interest
Go through SEC filings from last 2 years (or more!)
and look for small nuggets of information
Craft 20 or so questions to which they must find
answers
Require citations of document number and date
Discuss in class
26. Key skills
Comfort getting around sec.gov
Appreciation for value of primary sources
Better understanding of the purpose of various
filings
Underscores the value of public documents to locate
incidental information – e.g. a board member’s
age, who a company views as its competitors, which
other boards an executive serves on – and, of
course, executive compensation
27. b) Retail round-up
Divide local retail community into categories, e.g.
Toys, specialty clothing, discount stores, electronics
Assign or let students pick a store from each category
Ask them to interview the store manager and file a
150-word feed about the store’s holiday outlook (or
sales)
Put feeds in a common electronic folder
Add recent press releases from trade
groups, statistics from the Commerce
Department, etc.
Give students 55 minutes (or more or less) to write a
local retail outlook story
28. Variations
Can be done before or after Thanksgiving – or post-
Christmas
Make part of the grade the quality of the student’s
feed
Show students examples of retail roundups in
advance
Offer best stories to the local media
29. c) Economic indicators
Select key economic indicators and assign one to each class
member (or let them draw)
Ask each to prepare a fact sheet or memo about the
indicator, including:
What it measures
Who measures it – and how
How often it is released
Any controversies about the measurement
Is it leading, lagging or coincident?
Ones to include:
Retail sales, durable goods, consumer price index, GDP (though not
technically an indicator), unemployment
Sources: Economic Indicator Calendars
http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/national_economy/nationalecon_cal.h
tml
30. Economic indicators, part two
After class presentations about indicators, ask each
student to write a story humanizing and localizing an
indicator
Doesn’t need to be the one they reported on
Good ones to use: retail, housing
starts, unemployment
31. Variations
Begin with general discussion of indicators
Include fun ones:
Lipstick
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lipstickindicator.asp
Hemlines
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/04/short_or_sh
ort_.html
Superbowl
Starbucks
Have class brainstorm a local or campus economic
indicator
32. d) Profile of Fed chairman
Combines writing exercise and research on Fed’s
mission and history
Can frame profile as:
Advance obit
“Resignation/retirement story”
Changing of the guard
Tip: Tell students to be careful where they print out
their stories!
33. e) Closet survey
A little, ungraded assignment
Engaging way to begin discussion of trade and
globalization
Ask each to examine 12 clothing labels and write
down the country of origin
In class, go around the room and keep a tally on the
blackboard of how many items were made on each
country/continent
Discuss implications
Variation: Ask each student to wear to class that day
something made in the USA
34. Final thoughts
Mix it up
Befriend professors in
economics, accounting, business, law
Keep topics fresh
Teach from the headlines
Have class pools or “consensus estimates”
Where Dow will end the day
What unemployment rate will be next month
GDP estimate
Reward winner with chocolate
Sustain YOUR interest; their interest will follow!