Investigating a Company: The Long and the Short of It

Follow the money. In the wake of several high-profile corporate scandals, such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, and the resulting Congressional actions to address them, getting to the bottom of a balance sheet and other company reports is an indispensable part of doing your job as a business publication editor.

Stock analysts do it … so can you! Join ASBPE for the second of three webinar conferences on Friday, March 2, and extend your reportorial savvy into the world of company financial statements. Learn about financial tools that top-tier investigative journalists use to enhance the breadth and depth of their business reporting, uncover hidden problems in company performance, estimate market share — and beat the competition in disclosing the next corporate scandal.

What You’ll Learn
• How to find out crucial corporate information when on deadline, and methods to use when you have more time to dedicate to story development.
• How to obtain and understand various corporate statements, reports and balance sheets.
• How to convey to your audience the significance of the numbers as you report on financial issues.

Meeting Details
When: Friday, March 2, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST.
Where: Your computer. A web conference dial-in number and access code is required, and will be provided to paid registrants in a subsequent e-mail.
How to attend: To reserve your place, send payment (credit card or check payable to ASBPE) by February 22nd with a completed reservation form.

• If paid by February 22: $25 for ASBPE members and journalism students (w/ photocopy of current ID); $30 for nonmembers.
• If paid after February 22: $30 for ASBPE members and journalism students (w/ photocopy of current ID); $35 for nonmembers.
An archived version of the presentation will be made available to participants upon request.

VISIT www.asbpe.org or email info@asbpe.org for a copy of the registration form.

About the Presenter
Steve Ross has combined a career in teaching, writing, consulting, and technology. He now edits a trade/professional magazine (Broadband Properties; www.bbpmag.com) and teaches business writing at the Harvard Extension. From 1985 until mid-2004, Ross taught full-time at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he was an associate professor of professional practice, teaching new media, national, and computer-assisted reporting. Since 1994, Ross has been conducting the nation’s largest surveys of journalists’ use of online services including (but not limited to) the World Wide Web. Among his 19 books are works on business, the environment and planning, multimedia, finance, statistics, product safety, and toxic substances. He is now under contract with McGraw-Hill to produce textbooks for analytic journalism and new media.