Put yourself on the marijuana beat

Covering Marijuana as Business

Trish Regan of CNBC offers a business look at California’s marijuana industry as part of a segment called Marijuana Inc. Inside America’s Pot Industry. The segment notes that “What Kansas is to wheat, Mendocino County is to marijuana.”

Trish covers the industry from the growers’ and sellers’ perspectives while also focusing on the criminal aspect.

Today’s Tip: There’s a good story behind most every business, even the “nontraditional” ones.

Trish’s segment is more than 40 minutes and provides a thorough overview of the California industry. The challenge is usually finding the people, which social networking sites make easier to do.

Racquel Rutledge took a similar look at people scamming the state out of childcare funds with her series called "Cashing in On Kids" for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her series illustrated the process parents and providers followed to bilk the state out of thousands of dollars.

Don't forget the human side of business stories

John Schmid of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found a human angle to help tell the tale of the final chapter of a Milwaukee company.

Nearly 10,000 people once worked at the sprawling ruins known to some as the former A.O. Smith industrial site, to others as the deathbed of Tower Automotive.
Now it is down to a single worker, Rich Wendling. Wendling learned recently that his final shift comes in November, following the City of Milwaukee's decision to buy the mothballed property and create an industrial park.

John says he has covered the industrial site since 2004 as part of the ongoing story of Milwaukee’s industrial history. He maintained sources and was able to tell the story of the site's final days through the story of Rich Wendling.

Today’s Tip, as John says: “It makes no sense to do economics reporting in a vacuum that relies on statistics. Good econ reporting is both social, human and global.”

By talking to a person with whom most readers could identify, John made the story more accessible to a wide variety of readers. By intertwining Rich Wendling’s history and the company’s history, he helped draw a vivid picture of the impact the site had on the city and the employees.