JMSC 7007, Spring 2012
Interpreting and Using Business Journalism in a Global Era
Instructor:
Classes:
Office:
Telephone:
E-mail:
Office hours:
Web site:
Rusty Todd
Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. to 9:25 p.m., Meng Wah Complex, MWT 7
Eliot Hall, Room 104
2219-4054 office
rtodd@hku.hk
Thursdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. or by appointment via email
http://jmsc.hku.hk/courses/jmsc7007spring2012/
Course Goals
We shall examine the financial, economic and business issues that journalists confront as the global
economy becomes increasingly integrated, competitive and, some would say, dangerous. We shall
endeavor to understand these issues at the global, regional, national and local levels. The goal of the
course is to give you the backgrounding, data-gathering and critical-thinking skills necessary to relate
global business issues to your audience, and to understand those issues yourselves. This is not a
journalism skills course; it is designed to help you develop the knowledge and intellectual capacities that
will make you a good financial journalist or an intelligent consumer of financial news.
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
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Understand the consequences of globalization and identify real-life examples.
Analyze current business, financial and economic events and explain their importance and
relevance to a general readership.
Link global trends to events in a single country or industry, and vice versa.
Develop a conceptual framework with which to understand and evaluate the significance, to
journalism and ordinary readers, of emerging global trends.
Assessment Tasks & Standards
All assignments must be submitted electronically from only one email address. Blog postings should be
made directly to the class blog in plain text. Acceptable formats for the other assignments are: Microsoft
Word (.doc or .docx), Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), or text (.rtf or .txt).
Twenty percent of your grade will be based on weekly written submissions to the class blog, including
posts of articles relevant to the week’s topic (with your own comment about the article’s significance) and
comments on others’ submissions. You will get at least partial credit for merely posting a relevant
comment and article each week by the deadline, the Friday before each class. You will get additional
credit for being a participant in the discussion on the blog by commenting on and responding to others’
comments.
Twenty percent of your grade will be based on one book report on two books of your choosing that are
relevant to one or more of the topics covered in this course (see Recommended Reading, below). You
must send me an email by the start of the start of class XXXX telling me the books you will read.
Substitutions will not be accepted after that point, so please make sure you have already read, or have
secured access to, those books. The book report will be assessed on the following three criteria: evidence
that you’ve read the books; ability to summarize the main points; and ability to synthesize the two books:
how their points, arguments and evidence are similar, how they differ, and how they relate to the course
topics. The report must not be longer than 750 words.
Forty percent of your grade will be based on two essays, each of which must not be longer than 750
words. Each essay will be worth 20 percent of your grade.
TOPIC ONE: Since the field of economics was founded centuries ago, debate has raged
between two main camps: advocates of a free market that supposedly brings prosperity to all
people, and supporters of government intervention in economic affairs to ensure that benefits
are distributed equitably. The global financial crisis and its aftermath have made many
economists, politicians and ordinary people question the value of free-market principles.
Governments recently have been more active in regulating markets, and have intervened more
frequently as the European debt crisis develops. Have free-market advocates been discredited
for good? Why or why not?
TOPIC TWO: Looking forward three to five years, what is the most important question we have
considered, and what subjects have we overlooked in class?
Twenty percent of your grade will be based on participation in class discussions.
Please see the Course Timetable section below for details on topics and deadlines for commentaries,
essays and the book report. Failure to attend class will obviously make it difficult for you to participate in
these discussions. There is no final examination for this course. Please see the Assessment Rubric and
Grade Descriptors below for information on how this work will be evaluated.
Thinking About Reading and Writing
As you read, ask yourself these questions, and you’ll find it easier to organize your thoughts when you’re
writing your weekly comment, as well as the essays and the book report. These are also the kinds of
questions I’ll be asking in class about the previous and current lecture.
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What is happening? What is the phenomenon or series of events or theory or whatever that you’re
reading about?
Why is this happening? What are the causes? What are peoples’ motivations? Is the reason
arbitrary or inevitable?
What is the topic’s context? This means recent history of the topic. It can also mean whether what
you’re reading fits a historical pattern, breaks a historical pattern, or is unprecedented. It can also
mean that opposing parties—such as capitalists and socialists—are arguing or actually fighting
over what’s happening.
What are the consequences? If what you’re reading about happens or keeps happening, what’s the
result? If it doesn’t happen or can be stopped, what’s the result?
What’s the future? If what’s happening continues, where does that take us? If it stops, where does
that take us? What are the odds that one thing or the other will be the case? What is the next
critical step in the process, and who is trying to influence it?
Required Reading
There is no textbook for this course. Required readings will be posted on the class blog the week before
the relevant class. You should read the relevant material on the blog before each week’s class and be
prepared to discuss it in that class.
You should regularly (and critically) read at least three of the following publications:
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South China Morning Post.
The Wall Street Journal Asia.
The Financial Times.
The Economist.
The New York Times or International Herald Tribune.
Copies of all four are available in the JMSC office or the HKU Main Library. Most of the content of those
publications is available for free online via an RSS feed reader such as Google Reader. You should also
pay attention to regional publications in regions in which you have an interest.
Online, regularly scan these Web sites:
Associated Press: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/provider-ap/
Reuters: http://biz.yahoo.com/reuters/
SmartMoney: http://www.smartmoney.com/
Marketwatch: http://www.marketwatch.com
Bloomberg News: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/
Xinhua business news: http://www.chinaview.cn/business/index.htm
You can always explore Google news and scholar, and we’ll also take a look in class two at how to use
Lexis/Nexis to quickly locate a wide range of material.
There are scores of good business blogs online. Try www.seekingalpha.com first. It aggregates many of
the best blogs onto one site. Time magazine has compiled a list of good business blogs at:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2057116,00.html
Here is a list of Asia-related business blogs:
http://www.bschool.com/blog/2011/50-best-blogs-for-following-asian-business/
Books for the Reports
You may read any two relevant books of your choosing. Here are some possibilities, but remember, you
may choose any two books that have relevance to the class in general or to the topics listed in the lecture
table below. You may read any edition of any of these books.
Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree
Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat
James Galbraith, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals
Should Too
Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence
Lui F. Hebron and John F. Stack, Globalization: Debunking the Myths
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Samuel S. Kim, East Asia and Globalization
Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics
Michael Lewis, The Big Short
Sylvia Nasar , Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet
Michael Schuman, The Miracle: The Epic Story of Asia’s Quest for Wealth
Amartya Sen , Development as Freedom
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents
Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World
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 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
# Dates
Topics & Assignments
1 Jan. 18 Course overview: the main
topics we’ll be covering.
A perspective on economic
globalization: It’s not new.
Course work: What you’ll be
doing for a grade in this class.
Readings
Readings on Web site by
Jan. 13.
Assignments
and Due Dates
Nothing due, but start
reading and thinking about
your first commentary.
2
Feb. 1
The global financial crisis and
its aftermath. The European
debt crisis. A quick tour of
Lexis/Nexis.
Readings on Web site by
Jan. 27.
First blog contribution due
Jan. 27.
3
Feb. 8
Global financial regulation:
Can national governments run
a global economy?
Readings on Web site by
Feb. 3.
Second blog contribution
due Feb. 3.
4
Feb.
15
Business, climate change and
sustainability: Multinationals
get the blame, but are they the
worst culprits? Can
governments agree on a global
warming treaty?
Readings on Web site by
Feb. 10.
Third blog contribution due
Feb. 10.
Email regarding books
being read due Feb. 15.
5
Feb.
22
Global poverty and economic
development. If people have
education, jobs and health
care, the world will be OK.
Can business help them get it?
Readings on Web site by
Feb. 17.
Fourth blog contribution
due Feb. 17.
6
Feb.
International trade and
Readings on Web site by
Fifth contribution due Feb.
7
29
protectionism. National leaders Feb. 24.
talk a good game, but free
trade remains an illusion. Can
current negotiations change
anything?
24.
March
14
Power shift: Is the West in
decline as Asia becomes the
world’s economic engine?
Sixth contribution due
March 9.
Readings on Web site by
March 9.
First essay due March 14.
8
March
21
The business of war and
Readings on Web site by
international arms control; the March 16.
business of medicine. If we
blow each other to pieces or all
die of a pandemic, what else
matters?
Seventh contribution due
March 16.
9
March
28
Guest speaker.
No blog comment this
week.
No reading for this week.
Book report due April 5.
10 April
11
Behavioral economics: Are we
misreporting markets? A look
at new economic theories that
journalists regularly overlook.
Readings on Web site by
April 6.
Eighth contribution due
April 6.
11 April
18
The new business journalism:
How globalization and
technology have transformed
economic reporting.
Readings on Web site by
April 13.
Ninth contribution due
April 13.
12 April
25
Course summary: What we
covered, and what we might
have missed.
No reading for this week.
Nothing this week.
Second essay due April
25.
There is no final examination in this class.
Course Grade Descriptors
1. Understand
consequences of
globalization and
identify real-life
examples
2. Analyze economic
A
B
C
Routinely demonstrates
sophisticated and
original insight through
regular blog postings and
class discussion
Regularly demonstrates
original insight through
blog and class discussion
Sometimes
demonstrates insight and
analysis in regular blog
and class participation
Rarely or never
participates in blog and
class discussion
F
Routinely demonstrates
Regularly demonstrates
Demonstrates clear and
Rarely or never produces
events for general
audience
3. Link global trends to
local events
4. Develop conceptual
framework to evaluate
global trends
sophisticated and
original analysis on all
course topics
Routinely identifies
original and highly
informative links
between global and local
events for all course
topics
Develops and routinely
applies a sophisticated
and original framework
towards analysis of all
course topics
clear and accurate
original analysis on most
course topics
Regularly identifies
original and informative
links between global and
local events for most
course topics
accurate analysis on
some course topics
clear or accurate analysis
Identifies original links
between global and local
events for some course
topics
Rarely or never identifies
links between global and
local events
Develops and regularly
applies an original
framework towards
analysis of most course
topics
Develops at least a
partial analytic
framework and applies it
to some course topics
Fails to demonstrate an
attempt to construct an
analytic framework
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 the consequences of globalization and identify real-life
examples
2. Analyze economic events for general audience
3. Link global trends to local events
4. Develop conceptual framework to evaluate global trends
A+
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
F
80
75 70 67 63 60 57 53 50 <49
80
80
80
75 70 67 63 60 57 53 50 <49
75 70 67 63 60 57 53 50 <49
75 70 67 63 60 57 53 50 <49