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Reporting finance and knowing the world we live in

by Mariana Belloso
Thursday, 12 November 2015 14:47 GMT

* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The name of the course was quite intimidating, we all expected five days of intensive training but didn't know how good it was until the end

The experience in London was better than expected. We learned, we practised and made friends. Finance was never this much fun before.

Do you know what a contango is? And backwardation? Who is a white knight during an acquisition process? We didn't know either, but we learned. A dozen journalists from around the world gathered in London for the "Advanced Business News Reporting in the Digital Age" course, hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.


The group included journalists from: Armenia, Bangladesh, Brazil, El Salvador, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Zambia. Some of us had been in the UK before but for many it was the first time. We stayed at a hotel about 10 minutes walk from the Thomson Reuters building, and going every day to classes was an enriching experience since we went together and talked about our jobs and our countries on the way.

The name of the course was quite intimidating, we all expected five days of intensive training but didn't know how good it was until the end. Tracy Hart welcomed us on the first day and took us to the Thomson Reuters building. The cold weather and the tiredness because of jet lag were common factors, but there was also excitement about the new experience.


Our trainers, Camila Reed and Rose Skelton, soon gained our confidence and showed us that learning about financial markets, prices, commodities and international commerce could be fun. And I'm not saying it with sarcasm, it really was fun. Camila used games, dynamics, videos and other resources to make things easy for us, and we realised how little we knew about financial reporting, regardless of the fact that many of us have been writing about economics for a while.


Every day we had a quick refresh of what we had studied the day before, and at the end of every session we checked our learning points together. Hearing about what was the best part of the day for others was in fact another way to learn.
One of my favourite parts of the week was the day we went to the front of the room in pairs and tried to explain about the economy of our partner's country. It was a challenge for us even trying to locate the countries on a map, but at the end we could see how many things we had in common, regardless of the distance and the big differences between our regions.


There was time to get to know the city too. We took advantage of our Oyster Cards and travelled by Underground, Overground and bus, and went to see Big Ben, the London Eye, Oxford Street and many other significant places in London.
At the end of the course, the objective of learning how to make the link between money and people was accomplished, as well as learning where to find new sources to report on business news. All in a friendly and fun environment, and with the plus of getting to know colleagues from around the world we hope to keep in touch with.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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