Programme
Year 2 Specialism
- Module 3: Financial Journalism
- Location: City University London
- Professor: Professor Donald Nordberg
- Duration: 10 weeks
- Credits: 10 ECTS
Overview
This module is taught by Professor Donald Nordberg. During nearly 20 years at Reuters in Europe and the United States, Professor Nordberg served in a variety of senior editorial and marketing roles. He was Vice President, Reuters America, responsible for financial news marketing and development of a financial television service. As News Editor for the Western hemisphere, he supervised 350 journalists in 40 offices. He was Financial Editor Europe, Middle East and Africa, a role which included product management as well as editorial responsibilities. A fluent German speaker, Professor Nordberg was bureau chief in Frankfurt and chief correspondent in Switzerland.
Indicative Syllabus
- Financial system and financial economics; financial markets; financial media.
- Corporate finance and economics; transparency and corporate reporting.
- Understanding financial statements; P/L, balance sheet, cash flow, EBITDA, etc.
- Reports on strategy – markets and products.
- Reporting on operations for financial readers.
- Reporting to financial markets; financial press and investor relations; disintermediation’ professional and consumer financial reporting.
- Reporting deals’ IPOs, M&A, business failure.
- Equity capital markets and regulation. Reporting responsibility: CSR, SRI, environmental reporting
- Reporting on purpose: corporate governance, business ethics, shareholder activism, hedge funds, and private equity.
- Meltdown exercise.
Student feedback
- “The reporting ‘days’ organised by Donald were a lot of fun and really good
practice. Donald taught us how spot stories obscured by flowery corporate
statements and press releases. His ‘meltdown’ exercise gave us real
newsroom experience and introduced us to fierce competition of wire
reporting. The visit to Reuters organised by Donald was a great experience
and helped me to find inspiration for my dissertation topic.” - “Prof. Nordberg really went out of his way to ensure that we get a
real-as-possible hands-on experience. We visited Reuters, we did a live
reporting exercise, the class was very complete and challenging.” - “Prof Nordberg is a fantastic professor. “
- “The hands on activities we did were really helpful to me. The newswriting day
we had at the end was an excellent preparation to take the newswriting test
for Dow Jones. The material was very relevant to me because I want to write
about business when the course is finished.”
Learning Outcomes
Subject Knowledge & Understanding
- Write copy for financial pages.
- Understand global financial markets and how financial institutions and intermediaries function within a complex global financial structure and how these are covered and interpreted by journalists.
- Have knowledge of structure, balance and narrative in financial stories, and of the kinds of information which need to be acquired and included by the proficient journalist.
Subject Specific Skills
- Produce copy in English to publishable standard.
- Develop interviewing skills with a wide range of stories and covering complex issues.
- Manage the implications of practical, operational and ethical dilemmas in the specific area and work to produce solutions.
Typical Methods of Assessment
- Portfolio of weekly financial journalism reporting exercises.
- A critical analysis of reporting in the business and financial press about the strategy of a selected case-study company, starting with the latest set of annual financial results; papers will be judged on their appreciation of strengths and weaknesses of press coverage, evidence of bias, errors and pre-conceptions, as well as the assessment of the quality of disclosure by the company itself.
- Using a selected company as the basis of analysis, discuss the tension between social responsibility and shareholder value and the implications for reporters covering the topic. This is an academic essay, complete with references to scholarly articles and analysis of the company’s public disclosures and press coverage of its reputation.
Indicative Reading List
- McKenzie, Wendy (2003) The Financial Times Guide to Using and Interpreting Company Accounts, London: FT Prentice Hall
- Stutely, Richard (2007) The Definitive Guide to Business Finance: What smart managers do with the numbers, London: FT Prentice Hall
- Valdez, Stephen (2007) An Introduction to Global Financial Markets, 5th Ed., Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
- Bartram, John (2003) “News Agency Wars: the battle between Reuters and Bloomberg.” Journalism Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 387-400
- Burton, P.S. (2002) “Financial Journalism: A Very Small Cog,” Counterpunch.org, July 30, http://www.counterpunch.org/burton0730.html (accessed 15jun07);
- Clarke, William M. (2004) How the City of London Works: An Introduction to Its Financial Markets, 6th Ed., London: Sweet & Maxwell
