* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A must for anyone pursuing a career in business journalism
When I heard about Thomson Reuters’s business journalism workshop, Writing Financial and Business News (London), I wasted no time in applying for a place on the course. With less than two years of business reporting experience, I thought, this would be a great learning opportunity. Reuters being the world’s largest multimedia news agency, my expectations from the course were very high.
To say that the course met my expectations would be an understatement – it exceeded them beyond my imagination level. I am more confident about covering business news now, thanks to the rigorous course format and the DNA-level critique of our work by the trainers who have 60 years of combined experience in the subject.
Although Reuters doesn’t recruit people out of this course, it certainly makes sure that the participants learn about the best practices in business journalism – they have assigned their best trainers to conduct this training, which alone is a good enough reason to be on this course.
The course trainer Roger Jeal, now retired, was one of Reuters’ most senior correspondents with over 40 years of experience at the agency. His reporting experience includes – but is not limited to – covering stock markets, company news, bond markets, central banks and government budgets. An Oxford graduate, Jeal has trained business journalists from more than 100 countries over the past 15 years. He also teaches business journalism at City University, London.
Camila Reed, Jeal’s co-trainer, is a multimedia journalist and broadcaster with more than 20 years’ experience, working in text and video-on-demand TV at Thomson Reuters and the BBC World Service. Reed is known for her specialist expertise in financial and commodity markets.
The experience of Jeal and Reed did reflect in their teaching and critique – they certainly pulled the best out of every participant. However, I wish we were given a little more time to benefit from this hands-on course, and I was disappointed the training lasted only five days. It would be great if I had a whole month or at least another week to learn from the trainers’ expertise – and covering a couple of stories for Reuters itself would be a great learning experience.
Overall, it was a very good course – a must for anyone pursuing a career in business journalism, I believe. The latest batch included participants from Philippines, China, Pakistan, Iran, Georgia, Bulgaria, Jordan, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco and Columbia, which was very helpful in building a global network of contacts, which can come in handy while covering regional or even global trade. This diverse pool of participants also helped each of us learn about major products of each of these countries.
Given that more than half of global exports are now coming from emerging economies, the demand for trained business journalists in such countries will certainly rise. There is no better time to be on this course than now.
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