A Must Read

By Kelly Carr
July 8, 2008 02:33 PM

Sorting through piles of stories, books and presentations, my goal last week was to develop a sizeable amount of material on business journalism for our two summer interns.

They needed information.  They needed the basics of business journalism: how to build a source list, where to look in an annual report and the definitions for countless acronyms. But I also wanted to leave them inspired, so I began tracking down literature to jazz them up about journalism, the financial world and the craft of writing.

Two books by distinguished business journalists, Michelle Leder and Chris Roush, came to mind.

Leder’s “Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company’s True Value” details how to read SEC footnotes and Roush’s “Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication” is an in-depth look at covering the business beat.

But, I wondered, “What other books are a must-read for business journalists?”

Who better to ask than the veterans, reporters and editors who have spent years on the business desk. They knew exactly the books we should be reading to improve our reporting and writing.

Curt Hazlett, a former financial copy desk chief at The Washington Post, said one of his favorite books is about the use and abuse of numbers. Jeff Bailey, who covered business for The New York Times, reads both fiction and non-fiction books with solid prose so he can study the author’s writing techniques and improve his own copy. Meanwhile, John Gittelsohn, a business reporter at The Orange County Register, seeks out books with strong characters.

Here are picks from the pros:

• “Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco,” by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar– This book was a first choice for many business reporters and editors. It’s an important business story, filled with characters and competition, which details the $25 billion buyout of RJR Nabisco Corp. Roush said it shows readers what it’s like on Wall Street. Gittelsohn added that the book “uses great humor and great reporting to tell a fascinating business story about greed and irrationality.”
• “24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America,” by Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller –  This book takes readers on a journey through corporate lies and corruption with two reporters who covered the fall of Enron. It’s required reading in Roush’s business journalism class at the University of North Carolina because “it walks the reader through their reporting tactics, from reading SEC filings to listening to conference calls to working sources on the phone. It shows you what you need to be a successful business journalist in the 21st century.”
• “200% of Nothing: An Eye Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy,” by A.K. Dewdney – Hazlett said business reporters must have an understanding of numbers and this book can help develop those skills. You learn as Dewdney points out shortfalls when it comes to numbers, “from the simple nonsensical percentages like the one used in the title to the complex gummed-up statistics that misstate the probability of an event occurring.”

A few more titles that business journalists should include on their bookshelves:

• “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,” by Robert A. Caro


• “Liar’s Poker” and “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis


• “Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner,” by Alec Klein


• “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker,” by Steven Greenhouse


• “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” by Barbara Ehrenreich


• “The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron,” by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind


• “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t,” by Jim Collins

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism