* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Reporting on the economy in language that could be understood even by your grandmother
To choose journalism as a lifestyle is to assume the challenge of telling stories and of a giving voice to the voiceless. This premise is heard among colleagues, in universities and in almost any social circle with links to this profession.
The essence of journalism, or knowing how to tell the story, brought together 12 people from March 23 to 27 in Lima, with the support of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and with the purpose of reporting on the economy in language that could be understood even by your grandmother.
The experiences shared ranged from being in a Colombian soap opera to infiltrating a state agency to obtain information for a report. Everybody, without exception, left the course convinced of their role in society based on truthfully reporting on the events that occur in their countries.
But reporting on the economy of a country presents a more interesting challenge for journalists – not only must Grandma understand but the senior executive, stockbroker, and even the finance minister may use the information to eventually make a decision.
This is precisely where the tools of such reporting were handed to the 12 participants from Latin America. We learned about concepts not entirely understood before the course such as "contango" and "backwardation".
We learned about Edgar, the "Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System", that collects, validates and transmits data from companies and others required by law to provide updated information to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. federal agency responsible for the supervision of financial markets.
And as well as Edgar, there were other sources of information that economic journalists should consider for reporting information related to financial markets.
But there were not only virtual sources which made an appearance. Guillermo Vidalón visited the pressroom of the journalism course. Vidalón serves as public relations manager for Southern Mining Corporation, 80 percent of whose shares are controlled by Grupo Mexico, one of the major copper producers in the world.
As a company spokesman, Guillermo Vidalón had a strong message to convince the journalists of the company’s point of view. But we were in a position to compare and contrast the mining company’s version with the complaints of local communities.
The exercise was carried out just as Southern initially announced its flagship mining project and extraction of copper in Peru, Tia Maria, would not go ahead, after failing to reach an agreement with local communities. It later withdrew that statement. During that week, a violent four-day protest against the project had taken place.
This example of company reporting brings us to one of the central elements of the economic journalism course: the reading of financial statements. For most journalists, this was the element that provided them with essential information for their future careers.
"I think it's a good tool that, in my case, will benefit me as a journalist in Panama" said Flor Bocharel, one of the foreign scholarship recipients.
In fact, for some colleagues, such as the Mexican expert in digital tools, Lucero Hernandez, one could now see that balance sheets were not abstract information but a snapshot of the company’s health.
"I personally have not had to deal with corporate balance sheets and these exercises show us how valuable this information is,” added Moises Navarro, a Peruvian journalist.
Finally, the strong message received by all 12 scholarship recipients from the Thomson Reuters Foundation course is that the key is to create a network of support among journalists from different regions of the world, committed to their work of informing people, to work as a team, with the task that “grandmother” and all readers, listeners or viewers, remain well informed.
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