Business journalists need specialized finance training

Newspaper Research Journal, Spring 2002 by Ludwig, Mark Donald

Telephone interviews generally lasted about a half-hour. The interviews were tape-recorded for later transcription. In some cases, I conducted follow-up inquiries by electronic mail. I structured the questions to elicit information about job experience, topics covered, education, training and attitudes toward education and training. Although I had planned additional interviews, I discontinued them when I felt that I had reached saturation.17

I transcribed the interviews and imported them into QSR NUDIST, a computer program that assists qualitative analysis. To get an initial feel for the data, I wrote memos summarizing each interview. Using the research questions, the interview protocol and the initial readings of the transcripts as a guide, I developed coding categories and subcategories to apply to the data. The main categories were "formal education," "professional training," "work history," "other training" and "attitudes." Each category was broken down into subcategories, and, in some cases, sub-subcategories. Because the journalists' answers came in sometimes-lengthy paragraphs, I used lines of text for units of analysis. I read through each transcript and coded the lines of text as appropriate. QSR NUDIST was then used to group the text by coding categories.

Results

Formal Education

The first research question asked, "What specialized training, whether academic, on-the-job, in-house or continuing education, do newspaper journalists covering business and economic issues have?" The study found that the formal education and training of business journalists varied widely, although there were also similarities across the subjects. All 18 of the interview subjects had college degrees, and more than half had either majored or double-majored in journalism or communication as an undergraduate, while 16.7 percent held master's degrees in journalism. The next most common major or double major was English, with 27.8 percent reporting it. Twenty-two percent had either majored, double-majored or minored in economics. Two editors in Oregon, one at a large paper and one at a medium-size paper, earned master of business administration degrees (MBAs). There appeared to be little difference in the types of degrees across the circulation categories.

Somewhat surprising was the discovery that two editors held MBAs. One, an editor at a large Oregon newspaper, had also double-majored in business and communication as an undergraduate and worked as a business reporter for about two and one half years before going back to school. "I'd been reporting for a couple years, and I just sort of saw the need for more specialized training and the obvious resume value," he said. "Going through an actual MBA program full time is not to be underestimated." The other editor, who worked at a medium-size Oregon newspaper, majored in English as an undergraduate and covered a number of government beats before switching to business reporting. That's when he decided he needed more education. "I wanted to get a better understanding of business so I could deal more efficiently and more aggressively with business," he said. Both editors said their degrees provided valuable tools for their work.