Tag Archives: Business journalist

PTC New Journalist Awards 2008: And the winners are…

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Reed Business Information’s (RBI) Tom Vaughan was a double winner at today’s Periodical Training Council’s (PTC) New Journalist of the Year awards.

Vaughan, who writes for Caterer and Hotelkeeper, picked up the overall award and new business features journalist too. Unfortunately (or fortunately for him) he was in absent – busy holidaying in Switzerland – and had the awards collected on his behalf.

The awards, which focus on new or young journalists in the UK magazine industry, also saw prizes for Jheni Osman, editor of Focus from BBC Magazines, who was named new editor of the year.

Full list of the winners:

Overall winner – Tom Vaughan, Caterer and Hotelkeeper, RBI

New editor of the year – Jheni Osman, Focus, BBC Magazine; (highly commended) Lucy Scott, Property Week, CMP Information

New section editor of the year – Emma Dent, Health Service Journal, EMAP Inform; (highly commended) Tom Bill, Building, CMP Information

New consumer journalist of the year – Josh Woodfin, FHM, Bauer Media; (highly commended) Jo Adnitt, Look, IPC Media

New consumer specialist/customer magazine journalist of the year – Ben Brain, Photoplus, Future Publishing

New magazine designer of the year – Tina Smith, Property Week, CMP Information; (highly commended) Luke O’Neill, Computer Arts, Future Publishing

New business journalist of the year – Crispin Dowler, Inside Housing, Ocean Media Group; (highly commended) Victoria Gill, Chemistry World, Royal Society of Chemistry

New business features journalist of the year – Tom Vaughan, Caterer and Hotelkeeper, RBI; (highly commended) Lydia Stockdale, Property Week, CMP Information

Most promising student journalist of the year: Audrey Ward, MA magazine journalism, City University; (highly commended) Alix O’Neill, MA magazine, Goldsmiths

SoE08: Robert Peston on the media’s role in the economic crisis

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Suggestions that the media caused the current economic crisis are ‘laughable’, BBC Business editor Robert Peston told the Society of Editors (SoE) conference today.

And claims that the BBC or Peston himself broke Northern Rock – meaning the bank itself and not the story – are ‘total baloney’, he added.

“This isn’t a reason for us [the media] to be self-satisfied or complacent. The media in general, in news but also in features, were in a sense complicit in the canard that house prices can only rise,” said Peston.

“For years and years endless property programmes and supplements created the myth that houses were a one-way bet and debts never had to be repaid.”

But, he said, it would have been ‘very hard for journalists’ to stand in the way of huge economic forces and say the world economy was headed for crisis.

Speaking of his own experiences as a business journalist, Peston said he was fortunate to have learnt ‘how debt worked’ during time spent at Investors Chronicle.

“Most business journalists don’t have that, they’re obsessed with stock markets. I think all of us have to think about the knowledge that resides in our organisations,” he added.

BBC enjoys bumper web traffic as banks’ fortunes slide

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It might be doom and gloom for Lehman Brothers staff, but at least someone’s gaining from it… Business news sites are reporting excellent traffic over the last few days – not least of all, the Beeb.

According to an article from yesterday’s Ariel, the BBC’s in-house magazine, the bbc.co.uk story from Monday ‘Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy’ was the site’s ‘most popular story’ in its 10-year history with more than 1.7 million page views.

From Ariel:

Boom time for business online as Lehmans goes bust: records fall while Wall Street trembles

Monday saw records tumble at the BBC news website’s business section.
As financial crisis circled the globe, culminating in the closure of Lehman Brothers, the BBC’s business pages enjoyed a record reach with 2.35 million individual readers logging on, double the usual amount.

And it also set a new record for most-read story: ‘Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy’ had more than 1.7m page views, making it the most popular story in the site’s 10-year history.

All told, the section attracted 9.25m page views in a single day.
Tim Weber, the business section’s editor, praised coverage of Lehman Brothers’ demise, which he said was ‘fast, comprehensive and authoritative’.

And he told ariel online: ‘Business and economics stories have always been more popular than most people suspect, but since the start of the credit crunch a year ago our daily reach has soared by about 50%.

‘However, Monday’s meltdown of investment bank Lehman has taken things to a new level.
‘It’s the most fascinating time in my live as a business journalist, but it’s also great to see that our audiences really appreciate our output.

‘Right now, at 1530 UK time on Tuesday, we’ve already reached more than 1.45 million people – it’s bound to be another bumper day.’

Criticism from blogosphere for journalist’s interview with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

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Business journalist Sarah Lacy’s interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the SXSW conference is being torn to shreds by bloggers, because of Lacy’s anecdotal style and rambling questions.

Lacy’s response: an angry message to Twitter (flagged up by CNET) shown below.

Sarah Lacy posts an angry message to Twitter

Lacy’s interview is now being touted as teaching material for journalism professor Jeff Jarvis’ classes. On his blog, Jarvis says Lacy’s biggest mistakes were not knowing or listening to her audience and her treatment of Zuckerberg – who apparently had to interrupt her ramble to suggest she asked a question at one point.

A post on Adam Tinworth’s blog details the lessons that should be learnt from this interview, namely: ‘engage, know your occasion, do your research and don’t confuse yourself with the story’.

Well said – these are basic interview skills, but Tinworth’s post highlights how these rules should be applied in a new media environment. He points out that despite working in a social media area, Lacy has ‘no direct means of replying that isn’t mediated by others’.

Lacy’s credentials as a business reporter covering technology for BusinessWeek and author on the subject of Silicon Valley and Web 2.0 should have stood her in good stead for this interview.

But it seems her reputation was not sufficient to endear her to or engage with her audience or the blogosphere – after all the interview wasn’t supposed to be about her…

UPDATE – Lacy gives her reaction to the interview in a video response (from Omar Galagga)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wyrny8PP-M]