JMSC 7008, Spring 2012
Business and Financial Journalism
Instructors:
Rusty Todd, Jeffrey Timmermans
Classes:
Tuesdays, 10 a.m.-11:55 a.m., Meng Wah MWT 6
Tutorials:
Section A: Tuesdays, noon-12:55 p.m., Elliot Hall Digital Media Lab
Section B: Fridays, 5 p.m.-5:55 p.m., Elliot Hall Digital Media Lab
Todd office:
Elliot Hall, Room 104
Timmermans office:
Elliot Hall, Room 109
Todd contacts:
2219-4054, rtodd@hku.hk
Timmermans contacts:
2219-4045, jeffreyt@hku.hk
Todd office hours:
Tuesdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. or by appointment via email
Timmermans office hours:
By appointment at https://tungle.me/jeffreyt
Course Goals
This course is for graduate students who wish to learn the techniques of business journalism. Business
journalism has grown rapidly over the past 15 years and promises to be one of the most interesting,
lucrative areas of journalism in the future, particularly on the Web and particularly in Asia. Students will
be develop competencies in financial information-gathering and writing, and demonstrate those skills by
preparing articles suitable for publication.
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Understand the basic structure of a business news story
Identity specific financial & business events worthy of news coverage
Explain how companies function and ways they compete with each other
Explain the significance of corporate events such as earnings announcements, share offerings and
mergers, and predict their likely market impact
Explain the basic functions of financial markets using non-technical language
Analyze corporate disclosure documents and identify newsworthy elements
Write a clear and concise summary of daily activity in a financial market
Write coherent and accurate analytical news stories on corporate events, including basic
fundamental analysis of public companies, for a general readership
Assessment Tasks and Standards
You will be assigned a Hong Kong company to research and cover throughout the term. Companies will
be assigned during class two. No writing will be due until week four. You will handle spot news during
assigned weeks—three of them—over the term. The assignment schedule will be distributed during class
two. You will be assigned a specific day on which to write your stock comment and specific weeks for
other spot news.
Spot News. You will file at least three spot stories during the term, one each during your assigned weeks.
--A Hong Kong stock market report. You will be given a specific day on which you file this report. The
report must be written by 9 p.m. on that day.
--An earnings report on the most recent financial report from your Hong Kong company. Prepare this
story during or before one of your "spot" week assignments. This report must be filed by 9 p.m. Friday of
the assigned week. (If your company does not report on schedule, you may choose any other HK
company's earnings to report.)
--At least one spot story of any kind (except earnings) on your company. Due by 9 p.m. on the day the
story happens.
Additional Spot Coverage.
You may file additional spot stories, particularly those about your company, at any time. Some students
file eight or more spot stories during a term. The more news you generate, the more valuable you become
as a reporter.
Analytic & Feature News.
You will file one feature or analytic story during the term. We will discuss this in detail before you go to
work. Rewrites will be required of this story. See Course Timetable for due dates associated with the
feature or analysis. This story might be a profile of a small business, or an analytic feature based on a
trend, controversy, your public company, innovation, competition or some other theme. You are limited
only by your imagination.
Reporting and Filing Routines.
For every spot story, you must file:
--The story.
--A Tweet of your story to the Twitter page.
For the feature or analytic story, you must file:
--A story proposal. You may not pursue a feature or analysis without prior approval.
--The story.
--A Tweet of your story to the Twitter page.
--A rewrite of the story after its first edit.
Everything but the Tweet is filed to our website. We will review Web procedures during the first class.
All material must be properly formatted. Samples are on the Web and Twitter sites.
Class website: http://jmsc.hku.hk/courses/jmsc7008spring2012/
Twitter account: hkbizj
Twitter password: bizjhk
Grade Weightings.
Here are grade weights for various class activities:
Market comment:
Earnings story:
Spot story:
Meeting deadlines:
Feature or Analysis:
Class participation:
18 percent
18 percent
18 percent
18 percent
18 percent
10 percent
Please see Course Grade Descriptors and Grading Rubric below for more information on how your work
is assessed.
Web Registration & Semester's Email
Go to our website and register immediately. For the user name, use the exact name you will use as your
publication byline. Enter the email address you will use this semester. You may use only one email
address.
Multimedia Submissions
You may submit mug shots, photos, audio-video and slideshows with any of your stories. Please include
appropriate caption material. Extra credit will be given for multimedia material.
Other Important Information
Deadlines. Deadlines are sacred in this course, just as they at established news organizations. You will be
notified of all deadlines for this course well in advance, so no excuses for late assignments will be
accepted and all late submissions will be penalized. Journalists who cannot respect deadlines will not
succeed.
Submitting assignments. All assignments for this course must either be posted directly on the course blog.
You must use only one email address throughout the semester.
Sourcing. You may not use material from other news media without attributing it—telling readers where
you got it. No self-respecting reporter steals material from other media when that information can be
originally sourced. If Dow Jones reports that Hong Kong's budget deficit is HK$1.3 billion, don't just use
that figure—go to the government website or call the government information office and get the
information from its original source.
Quotes.You may quote interviews you do face-to-face or by telephone. You may also quote commentaries
and documents, including those issued on the Web, by brokers, banks and other institutions. You may not
steal quotes from other news media unless you acknowledge doing so and cannot find your own quote.
Try not to do interviews over e-mail or social networking sites unless there is no other option.
What's a source? A source is a person or a quotable document that comes directly from an organization or
person. Another news report is not a good source.
How many sources are enough? If you're rewriting a corporate news release on the deadline, often that
will be your only source. Tell the readers the information and quotes come from a release high in your
story. If you're writing a market comment, you should try to get one "live" source, more if you can. You
should try to arrange your source ahead of time—the week before you're assigned to do the market
comment. For features and analysis, the more sources, the better. General rule: Anything that's not a spot
story should have at least three live sources—quotes from people—in addition to quotable documents.
What about what I think? Readers will not care what you think until you're much more experienced. They
care about your ability to know reality and transmit it to them through documentation, live sources and
insight. This is a reporting class, not an editorial-writing class, so don’t submit essays that rely solely on
your own opinion.
Required Reading
There is no textbook for this course, although required readings will be posted on the class blog. In
addition, all students are required to read the business section of the South China Morning Post and either
The Wall Street Journal Asia or the Financial Times every day during the semester. You will be given a
password to the SCMP website; print copies of the SCMP, WSJA and FT are available in the JMSC
office on the ground floor of Eliot Hall, as well as in the HKU Main Library. Please see the course blog
for additional recommended reading and reference materials.
Other Useful Texts & websites
Understanding Wall Street, Jeffrey B. Little (e-book available via HKU Libraries website)
The Irwin Guide to Using The Wall Street Journal, Michael B. Lehmann (e-book available via HKU
Libraries website).
Understanding Financial Statements – A Journalist’s Guide, Jay Taparia.
Writing About Business: The New Columbia Knight-Bagehot Guide to Economics & Business Journalism,
Terri Thompson (ed.) (e-book available via HKU Libraries website).
Show Me The Money: Writing Business & Economics Stories for Mass Communication, Chris Roush (ebook available via HKU Libraries website).
Guide to Economic Indicators – Making Sense of Economics, The Economist (e-book available via HKU
Libraries website).
Campbell R. Harvey’s Hypertextual Finance Glossary
Investopedia (online finance dictionary).
And, for non-native English speakers, You Can Write Better English by the JMSC’s own Barry Kalb, is
extremely helpful (available at the HKU bookstore).
Attendance Requirements and Journalistic Honesty
All students in this class will be treated as professional journalists. They will be given the respect
rightfully demanded by such professionals, but they also will be held to a professional standard of
conduct. Attendance for the entire duration of all lectures is mandatory. Failure to attend more than two
classes without prior notice may be cause for being dropped from this course. Plagiarism is not tolerated
at professional news organizations and it is not tolerated in this course. Students caught cheating or
passing off others’ work as their own will be given a failing grade for the course.
Course Timetable
Date
Topic
Summary
Jan. 17
Introduction to business
& financial news
Jan. 31
Writing small-business
profiles
Feb. 7
Covering company news
Feb. 14
Covering financial
markets
Course introduction
and overview; how to
read business news
How businesses work
and how to write
about businesses &
the people who run
them
What companies do,
and why we care
How financial
markets operate, and
why we care
Feb. 21
Covering stock markets
Feb. 28
Covering earnings
announcements
March 13
March 20
Analyzing profit-andloss statements
Analyzing balance
sheets & cash flow
statements
Covering daily
activity in stock
markets
Why earnings
announcements
matter, and how to
cover them
Finding news, and
red flags, in P&Ls
Finding news, and
red flags, in balance
sheets and cash flow
statements
Assignments &
Due Dates
Register on course
website
Assessed
Outcome(s)
1, 2
1, 2, 3, 8
1, 2, 3, 4
Weekly spot story
assignments begin.
Feature proposal
due.
1, 2, 5, 7
1, 2, 3, 5, 7
1, 2, 3, 4, 8
First draft of
feature due.
1, 2, 3, 4, 6,
8
1, 2, 3, 4, 6,
8
March 27
Global macroeconomic
theory and applications
in business journalism
April 3
Covering currency and
bond markets
April 10
Trade & global
competition
April 17
Covering mergers &
acquisitions
Types of economic
events and what
makes them
newsworthy
Covering daily
activity in currency &
bond markets
Structure of the
global trade system,
and how economies
and companies fit in
Analyzing corporate
acquisitions and
merger bids
1, 2
1, 2, 5, 7
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Final draft of
feature story due.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 8
Course Grade Descriptors
A
1. Understand basic
structure of business
news
2. Identify
newsworthy
business & financial
events
3. Explain how
companies function
4. Explain corporate
events
5. Explain how
markets function
6. Analyze and
Identify news in
corporate disclosure
7. Writing market
commentary
8. Writing corporate
news
B
C
Sophisticated
understanding of
business news
structure
Identify 90% of all
newsworthy items in
assignments
Clear understanding of
business news
structure
Understanding of basic
business news
structure
F
Identify 80% of all
newsworthy items in
assignments
Identify 70% of all
newsworthy items in
assignments
Comprehensive
understanding of
companies and ability
to explain clearly and
concisely to general
audience
Sophisticated
understanding of all
important corporate
events and consistent
ability to explain them
clearly and concisely
Sophisticated
understanding of all
important market
functions and
consistent ability to
explain them clearly
and concisely
Accurate analysis of
90% of newsworthy
items in assignments
Basic understanding of
how companies
function and ability to
explain to a general
audience
Basic understanding of
how companies
function and partial
ability to explain them
Little or no
understanding of how
companies function
Clear understanding of
majority of important
corporate events and
ability to explain them
Understanding of some
important corporate
events and partial
ability to explain them
clearly
Little or no
understanding of
important corporate
events
Understanding of basic
market functions and
ability to explain them
for a general audience
Some understanding of
basic market functions
and partial ability to
explain them clearly
Little or no knowledge
of market functions
and/or consistent
failure to explain them
Accurate analysis of
80% of newsworthy
items in assignments
Accurate analysis of
70% of newsworthy
items in assignments
Failure to accurately
analyze majority of
newsworthy items
Clear and concise
summary of all key
elements of a day’s
market activity
Clear and concise
analysis of all
newsworthy elements
Clear and concise
summary of most key
elements of a day’s
market activity
Clear and concise
analysis of most
newsworthy elements
Clear and/or concise
summary of some key
elements of a day’s
activity
Clear and/or concise
summary of some
elements and
rudimentary analysis
Failure to complete
work by deadline
Little or no
understanding of
business news
structure
Failure to identify
majority of
newsworthy items
Failure to complete
work by deadline
Assessment Rubric
Each of your assignments will be assessed on at least one of the following criteria. All criteria are equally
weighted, so the final score for assignments with multiple criteria will be based on an average of the
scores for each relevant criterion.
1. Understand basic structure of business news
2. Identify newsworthy business & financial events
3. Explain how companies function
4. Explain corporate events
5. Explain how markets function
6. Interpret and explain economic data
7. Writing market commentary
8. Writing corporate news
A+
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
A
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
A70
70
70
70
70
70
70
70
B+
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
67
B
63
63
63
63
63
63
63
63
B60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
C+
57
57
57
57
57
57
57
57
C
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
53
C50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
F
<49
<49
<49
<49
<49
<49
<49
<49