Enhance the story with multimedia

Almost any business story can be enhanced by using video or audio along with the print or web version of the story. For a business reporter, the first question is: What medium best tells the story — a video clip, photo or series of photos with explanatory text or an audio narration?

The decision to use multimedia depends partly on what “visuals” are available for the print story. Sources may be interviewed on camera, for example, for a video. Or they can be inter¬viewed and recorded for a podcast — an audio file that the audience can download from a website and listen to on a computer or on an MP3 player. A series of photos with audio narration — a slideshow — can be a good way to explain complicated technology.

Many newsrooms are now equipped with their own digital media departments, and if you’re lucky enough to work in this environment, your editor may send a videographer or reporter or sound technician along on an assignment.

Reporter's Notebook

At one time, journalists relied heavily on analysts for tips and insights. That changed, however, after Enron Corp. imploded. Analysts had been largely uncritical and even euphoric about Enron. As it turned out, many of the analysts’ companies were receiving fees or being paid for contract work with Enron. Such analysts are not independent and tended to spin positive news.

“Business reporters should probably not quote analysts at all,” Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times was quoted as saying in a 2002 Columbia Journalism Review story, “Enron: Uncovering the Uncovered Story.”

“If they do quote them,” Morgenson continued, “they should at least identify the firm and the firm’s relation-ship to the company that they’re talking about.”

In 2012, Morgenson elaborated on that viewpoint, saying: “Specifically, many analysts at large invest-ment banks have been known to write favorable research about companies for whom their firms conducted other business, such as raising capital from investors or providing mergers and acquisition advice. This conflicted position exploded into public view in the aftermath of the Internet bubble, when investigations into analysts’ work uncovered internal e-mails disparaging companies that the same analysts were recommending to investors.”

Many reporters, however, have bought simple, inexpensive videocameras or digital recorders so that they can collect their own digital media to post online.