How Business Journalists Could Make My Life Easier

I would like to explore the topic of how business journalists could make my life easier. Let's start by looking at a brief article, in all its original 150 word Associated Press glory:

Radyne to Accelerate Vesting of Options
Radyne Board Agrees to Accelerate Vesting of Options to Reduce Stock Compensation Expenses

PHOENIX (AP) -- Radyne Corp. said on Monday its board agreed to accelerate the vesting of employee stock options in order to reduce expenses in the future.

The maker of satellite and cable transmission software and equipment said it will immediately exercise options on about 1.4 million shares, which would have resulted in $3.5 million in stock compensation expenses over the vesting term of the options.

The company said that its board also agreed to increase the annual fee to directors who are on committees other than the audit committee to $2,500, up from $1,500. The fee for the chairman of the audit committee was increased to $6,000 from $5,000.

Shares of Radyne, which have traded between $7.15 and $15.49 over the last year, closed up 13 cents at $14.12 on the Nasdaq.

The suject of this article is clear from the title: "Radyne to Accelerate Vesting of Options."  This single piece of information is presented four different ways:

1. The Title, "Radyne to Accelerate Vesting of Options"
2. The Sub-Title, which clarifies that it is the board who as agreed to do this, as well as their rationale, to "Reduce Stock Compensation Expenses"
3. The first sentence, which repeats the subtitle and adds that these would be future expenses.
4. The second sentence, which adds a quick description of the company, which anyone reading an article on this minute of a detail should know, and then adds the number of shares vesting and the dollar amount.

Finally, the news article adds some new information, that the directors will receive a marginal increase in directors fees ($1,000), and provides the 52-week high and low as well as the 1-day change for the stock.

Let's look at the journalistic conventions on display here. The first one convention constitutes most of the problem for all journalism; the others are business-journalism specific:

• Restating one fact multiple times, but making sure that no single repetition contains all the information a reader needs.
• Adding tiny blurbs about companies that readers should already know if they care about the company. 
• Providing information about stock prices in an article where the article is clearly not a driver of movement in the company's stock.

Now, I'm sure these journalistic conventions are a product of the days when most information accessible to readers was all that could "fit" in the paper they held in their hands, but I'm pretty sure they don't apply anymore.

So, in the interests of self-interested public service, let me offer a re-write:

Radyne to Accelerate Vesting of Options

PHOENIX (AP) -- Radyne said on Monday its board agreed to accelerate the vesting of employee stock options, and immediately exercise options on 1.4 million shares to reduce expenses in the future, which were expected to be $3.5 million over the vesting term of the options.

The company said that its board also agreed to increase the annual fee to directors who are on committees other than the audit committee to $2,500, up from $1,500. The fee for the chairman of the audit committee was increased to $6,000 from $5,000.

Having a ~50% "text inflation" factor in the articles I read, spread out over 50+ articles a day adds up, and it is wearing. Sure, I could skim, filter out the extra words in the articles I read, but why should I have to pick apart something that another person is putting in unnecessary effort to complicate?

Nothing points to overcapacity in journalism today like the presence of multiple news-gathering organizations dedicated to producing flowery prose on stories that should be brief and tightly edited.

You'd think that in today's environment that journalists would have a strong incentive to increase the user friendliness (ie - clean, streamlined prose) of their product. After all, it's not like media firms are having a tough time or anything...right?

I want to read this stuff, and lots of it. Lots of it. And remember: once I'm done reading an article, I then need to decide its relevance to what I already know. (That's the hard part.) No need to make data mining and analysis any harder than it already is. - Ed

Comments

[David Foster]

There are indeed problems with a lot of business writing, and it's not limited to journalism: some of the worst examples appear in press releases.

See my post "Dumb Company Tricks" at:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_photoncourier_archive.html#106736265531644731

[Anita Campbell]

Interesting .... Do you realize you have rewritten the article in "blog" style?

The new article has the user-friendly and conversational tone that we associate with blogs.

Also, it links out to other sources, the lack of which seriously annoys me when I am reading the typical media article and have to go Google to find some backup info.

Nice...

Anita

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