Business Journalism Boot Camp: Portland, Ore., Oct. 13

We’ve all become business reporters as the tumultuous economy impacts every beat from the arts to City Hall to sports. No matter what you cover, a grounding in the basics of business will help you break stories and hold corporate officials accountable.

In this free workshop, you’ll learn the basics of business for public companies, private companies and nonprofits. Award-winning professors and journalists will have you analyzing financial statements to find stories about public companies, as well as tracking public information on private companies and nonprofits.

Learn how to dissect the new IRS Form 990 line-by-line to find stories about local nonprofits. Examples will be tailored to the Oregon market.

Whether you’re an experienced business reporter or have never cracked a Form 10-Q, you will pick up new skills to follow the money and stay on top of the biggest story around – the economy.

Click here to register.

You Will Learn How To:

• Understand public companies’ financial statements, with special emphasis on income (profit/loss) and cash-flow statements.
• Find stories in earnings reports and cash-flow statements.
• Analyze companies’ financials using common-size analysis.
• Find public documents on private companies and know the basics of what you’ll find in those documents, including their limitations
• Understand the new IRS Form 990 and how to find stories on nonprofits’ finances in it

Agenda: Business Journalism Boot Camp
8:30-8:50 a.m.: Continental breakfast and registration
8:50-9 a.m.: Welcome and introductions

Morning: Unlocking public companies’ financial statements
9-9:15 a.m.: Review pre-work on the basics of accounting – James Gentry
9:15-10:45 a.m.: Understanding the income statement and finding stories in earnings reports – Gentry
10:45-11 a.m.: Break
11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Finding stories in cash-flow statements and analyzing financials using common-size analysis – Gentry
12:15-1 p.m.: Case study using the common-size analysis (Box lunch provided) – Gentry

Afternoon: Finding public information on private companies and nonprofits
1-2 p.m.: Finding public information on private companies – Chris Roush
2-2:45 p.m.: Finding public information on nonprofits and foundations – Roush
2:45-3 p.m.: Break
3-4 p.m.: Digging into the new Form 990 – Ronald Campbell
4-5 p.m.: Bread crumbs – a case study on following the paper trail of a private company and nonprofit – Campbell

Your Instructors

James Gentry

James K. Gentry is a professor and former dean at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Over the past 25 years, he has taught thousands of journalists how to understand the language of business. He received the Barry Sherman Teaching Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Prior to joining KU, he was journalism dean at the University of Nevada, Reno, and associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Ronald Campbell

Ronald Campbell is a reporter for The Orange County Register. He started The Register’s program in computer-assisted reporting. He has worked on many investigations, including probes of California’s dependence on immigrant labor, the trade in human body parts, abusive charitable fund-raising tactics and fraudulent stock sales. He’s won the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, as well as awards from the National Education Writers and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative, which provides training for professional journalists and students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches classes on business and economics reporting. The Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism was named the Journalism Teacher of the Year for 2009 by the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, as well as the N.C. Professor of the Year in 2010 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Please do not register unless you are sincere about participating. Signing up and not participating deprives someone else of the opportunity.

Those who successfully complete three regional workshops or online seminars presented by the Reynolds Center are eligible to receive a “Circle of Achievement” certificate.

This free seminar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the workshop or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.