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Monthly Luncheon Report

(Wednesday, March 12, 2008 PCC Monthly Luncheon)

Business Reporting Seeks To Keep Pace with Online Technologies

Blogs and even video are part of the mix

MODERATOR

John Vita, Vice President of Communications
Grant Thornton LLP

PANELISTS

Jeff Flock, Bureau Chief
Fox Business TV

Joe Weber, Bureau Chief for BusinessWeek

Joe Barrett, Deputy Bureau Chief
for The Wall Street Journal

PROGRAM SUMMARY

John Vita (from left), Joe Barrett, Joe Weber, Jeff Flock. Photo by Ted Lacey.

By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts

With the news landscape ever-shifting and changing, a prestige panel of business editors and reporters addressed the future of business news during the March Publicity Club of Chicago luncheon. The moderator was Grant Thornton, LLP, national communications director John Vita. He was joined by Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Joe Barrett, FOX Business Network reporter Jeff Flock, and BusinessWeek correspondent chief Joe Weber.

With more than 25 years of experience, including work for Fortune 500 firms and a presidential campaign, John Vita is the National Director of Communications at Grant Thornton LLP, one of the six global accounting organizations. Prior to assuming his current position, Vita worked at Arthur Andersen and as an investigative news producer for WBBM-TV in Chicago.

Vita asked the panel whether the changes in the business press will promote even greater competition.

Joe Barrett – The Wall Street Journal
Deputy Chicago Bureau Chief
Joseph.barrett@wsj.com

Deputy Chicago bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Joe Barrett helps oversee a staff of reporters who cover agriculture, restaurants, packaged foods, brewers, airlines, medicine, heavy machinery and the Midwest economy and politics. Prior to joining the WSJ, Barrett spent 20 years at Dow Jones, was a page one editor in New York and Brussels, a copy editor and the writer of the page one "What's News" column.

With the news world becoming quicker and quicker, the Web has become a commodity. The Wall Street Journal has an agreement through 2011 with CNBC and is actually hiring rather than laying off staff, while targeting mid-level managers who aspire to join the boardroom as CEOs and CFOs.

Barrett advises PR people to become familiar with the WSJ sections and what they cover. "Pitch the right story to the right person," he advised, adding that he likes conventions and events in Chicago, even though he may not have the staff to send someone to cover what is happening. "Know what is going on."

He is also interested in studies. "If you can offer me an exclusive on an academic study of homeless people with HIV/AIDS, we would probably cover that! Any studies or news that we are offered exclusively" is a good bet for WSJ coverage. He further advises PR people to "shop the story around, but wait for an answer. The next time I see an e-mail from you, I may be more likely to respond."

With about one million online subscribers, Barrett predicts that in the next five to 10 years, "the Internet will be the story. Currently, there are about two million regular readers and we are the only publication that currently charges for access to its Web site. Everyone is wrestling with the business model, knowing we have two masters. Journalists are also morphing, becoming multipurposed."

In the past the WSJ had given priority to the print edition and even embargoed news until it could appear in print. But after getting beat by the New York Times online, their current goal is to put the most current news on the Web first before putting it in their print edition..

In the past, the WSJ was more focused on Chicago stories. It wanted industry stories about beer, packaged food, restaurants, technology, etc. In the past 18 months, this has changed and a story’s "Chicago-ness" does not matter as much. A new dimension to reporting is the use of video, which is being shot by reporters with hand-held cameras.

Joseph Weber, BusinessWeek
Chief of Correspondents
Joe_weber@businessweek.com

Joseph Weber serves both as the domestic Chief of Correspondents for Business Week (BW) and as bureau manager. In addition to managing the Chicago reporting staff, which covers business, economic and political news across the Midwest, Weber also oversees the editorial operations of BW Chicago, a monthly edition of the magazine focused on the Chicago metropolitan area. His focus is on finance, healthcare, media and assorted corporate, regional and national issues. Prior to becoming bureau manager, in Chicago, he served BW in Dallas, Philadelphia and Toronto.

According to Weber, the business press must provide not only substance and depth, but an explanation, "the why." Business Week and other publications have been "redefining themselves over the past two years. Forbes and Fortune are bi-weeklies while Business Week is a weekly," he said.

His publication brings people stories that explain information more substantially than the Web typically supplies with its speed. It also includes three or more major in-depth thought pieces that have not appeared elsewhere. Business Week Chicago was created and now exists to relate only to Chicago businesses.

"The journalism is incredibly fervent," Weber explained. "All of these have to differentiate themselves as products cogently as main stream media shrinks. We now have Business Week TV, which has no formal alliance and on which appears breaking news on the market with one of our folks getting elected to be a talking head."

He added that most stories of any significance that come to fruition in Business Week have involved PR people.

"What works best for me is access to top executives," he said. "This is essential, along with having an executive who takes hard questions and provides answers. Also helpful is fact checking."

It is not helpful when PR people do not understand the publication and send inappropriate pitches or call. "If the story has legs, e-mail is the best way to contact me," Weber added.

He predicts that the Internet will continue to grow, especially as print costs increase. The big test, he said, is whether people want to read or just see images. Promisingly, there has been a growth on the local level for publications like his and Crain’s. A need appears to exist for business news in the market, however a big debate exists regarding whether or not to charge for access to the publication’s Web site.

Stressing the immediacy of the Web, he said, "If you are a trader, two minutes can be an eternity! That small amount of time can make or break him."

The question publications must ask is: "Will the reader keep reading a story?" At that point, "The brand name of a product becomes ever more important," said Weber.
Can you rely on the publication to let you know "if the company is part of a division of a company in Dubai? The score card is murky. The appeal of the Internet is to look rough and unpolished and put it in front of a New York market guy and let him look more genuine."

In that way, all the pieces – print and Internet editions -- must work together.

Jeff Flock - FOX Business Network
Reporter
Jeff.flock@foxbusiness.com

Jeff Flock began his career helping to launch CNN, and served as Chicago Bureau Chief and correspondent, managing Midwest coverage and reporting on and winning Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of some of this nation's most compelling stories like the Gulf War and Oklahoma City bombing. He left CNN in 2004, becoming the managing editor and anchor for Hurricane Now, LLC, a Web site specializing in hurricane coverage in the United States. He joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in 2007.

The Web now offers a wealth of information to anyone who looks for it. In the past, "the stuff we had as business journalists, everyone has now. Hard charts, which are valuable tools, are now just a click away on the Internet. Reporters need to be smarter now than ever. We need to identify the most important thing and know what to do with it," said Flock, who spent 25 years working with the Ted Turner-owned CNN.

"I wish someone had turned me on to business reporting earlier in my career," he said, jokingly adding, "Business news does not happen in the middle of the night, on Christmas or on weekends."

With 106 stations on Comcast in Chicago and 40 million cable-viewing homes, the FOX vision in broadcast these days is to target the audience.

"We conducted focus groups with Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 CEOs and noted how much blows by them. We need to explain this information so people can understand it and make it more accessible," he said, "educating the public rather than dumbing it down."

Typically when people watch television, everyone watches the same thing at the same time, however, in contrast, the Internet tends to fragment people. The goal in business news is to bring more people in to watch.

Rupert "Murdoch looked at aggressively breaking business news," he said. "If the Fox Business Network takes off, CNBC may die a natural death. There is a lot of good news out there and the pace has ramped up."

He noted that rather than receiving mail, he gets around 600 e-mails a day including a lot of material and story pitches via Blackberry. Those that interest him get forwarded to his home account and he looks at them when he has the time, unless he responds immediately to those that are either particularly interesting or time-sensitive. When he is interested, responses may include, "Can you send me more? Tell me more?" and "Can I send a crew tomorrow?"

His Chicago team shoots all its video and shows it live 10 times a day. He particularly wants to see two to three minute "pops with texture" that make good television and includes people in them.

"I am live most of the day from 9 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m.," he explained. "The best way to contact me is e-mail. Even my producers e-mail me to tell me I’m on the air in 5 seconds!"

"I am in charge of seeing REAL people and making stories come alive, showing how things work," he added. "Not everyone understands bond markets and butterfly spreads. I hope to and want to offer real, solid valuable information."

There is no longer a need to put stock and financial information in the print newspaper due to the availability of the Internet and other resources. Despite the competitive pressures to focus on "breaking" stories, this trend is beginning to wane due to an erosion in mainstream media in being able to vet out when something is erroneous.

Increasingly, "news teams" now consist of only one person reporting and airing a story. As a result, Flock generally is not taken in by stunts and does not take B-roll from outside sources. However, he does enjoy being able to show serious news in an entertaining way. "The grittiness of the real stuff has an allure and genuineness that is hard to match," he said.

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