WRITING ABOUT COMPANIES

Understanding company news forms the basis of business reporting; knowledge of company accounts injects professionalism into interviews with corporate executives, bankers and financial institutions. Participating journalists learn how to read basic corporate documents, including profit and loss accounts and balance sheets and understand how companies raise finance through initial public offerings, share issues and bond sales. The course offers a basic understanding of how companies are valued and the information financial markets expect from journalists. This workshop requires journalists to avoid legal dangers and write about a company’s fortunes after a series of corporate announcements and interviews with executives.

Journalism skills addressed during the course

1. •News judgment
   

2. •Cultivating sources and obtaining exclusive stories
   

3. •Handling corporate news releases
   

4. •Writing stock market reports with context
   

5. •Covering company annual meetings and news conferences
   

6. •Interviews with company officials
   

7. •Writing good leads and headlines
   

8. •Knowledge of legal dangers
   

9. •Writing accurate, balanced equity stories quickly with solid context.
   

Financial subjects addressed during the course

1. •Basic principles of equity investment, initial public offerings and capital changes
   

2. •Stock markets activity
   

3. •Company structures, accounts, statements and annual reports
   

4. •Balance sheets, income statements, cash flow, EBITDA and depreciation
   

5. •Sources of corporate finance, shares and corporate bonds, gearing
   

6. •Basic measures of corporate value
   

7. •Measuring and comparing sectors and companies globally
   

8. •Earnings and expectations
   

9. •Liquidity problems, bankruptcy and liquidation.
   

Financial terms explained during the course

Ordinary and preference shares, depositary receipts, ratings, corporate governance, market capitalisation, earnings per share, price/earnings ratios, ratio analysis, economic value, dividend yield, depreciation, cash flow, EBITDA and overtrading.

Course Objectives 

After completing the course, participants can expect to be able to:

1. •Write authoritative stock market reports
   

2. •Map the main elements of an income statement and balance sheet
   

3. •Explain the difference between debt and equity funding
   

4. •Review a set of company accounts to produce story ideas
   

5. •Find key elements in earnings statements and deliver reports in context
   

6. •Extract the main news elements from a corporate handout
   

7. •Interview company officials with authority
   

8. •Demonstrate the use of different story structures to enhance writing clarity
   

9. •Write stories on the relative performance of companies and sectors
   

10. •Explain stock market analysts’ approaches to corporate valuation.
    

Course Outline

Participants will engage in a practical case study-based writing workshop that demands cover of two companies after setting the scene with a stock market report.  This will involve plans for an initial public offering (IPO), a series of company results announcements, a bond ratings change, speeches to an industrial conference and a potential merger or incident of financial difficulty. Participants are introduced to new terms steadily and, as a review, will incorporate them into the evolving story that is checked by a copy coach. Learning reviews during the course ask participants in facilitated discussions to extract learning points from the output of all writers, including trainer versions, and they will build a personal action plan for post-course learning.

Pre-work/Pre-requisites

Pre-course reading, learning agreements and a short evaluation to establish existing knowledge of equities.