Business Journalism- Angie Lau

Hello SPJ-ers,

If you missed the past week in SPJ you missed two great events! First, on Tuesday award-winning journalist and fellow SPJ-er, Angie Lau, spoke to SPJ about business journalism. Lau gave students great advice. She said the key to coming up with stories is to ask the uncommon question and then answer it. "A lot of opportunities in this industry you will create yourself," Lau said. This has proved true for Lau who eventually worked her way up to work as an anchor and producer for the business news company, Bloomberg.

According to Inc Volume 11, "Bloomberg is located in more than 135 locations around the world and employs more than 10,000 people." Scripps is one of nine lucky schools in the world to receive a Bloomberg terminal. We, as students, should take advantage of this resource because as Lau said, "that terminal is used by financial professionals who pay up to $2000 per month to use it." For the many of students who don't know, the terminal is located in Scripps' Lasher Learning Center and has nearly unlimited pages of business and finance information.

Saturday SPJ and Ed2010 collaborated to host our first annual Battle of the Bands, a fundraiser that brought four music journalists into Athens to judge the bands and provide valuable information to students interested in music journalism. During the 2 hour panel the judges discussed their experiences in the field and answered any type of question thrown their way. From "how to write a compelling review" to "what was the biggest problem you had after writing a negative review" and many more in between. We learned not to put an artist down in a negative review and the extreme benefits of freelancing- hopefully landing a job-as it is proof that you can write interesting articles on time.

"You don't stop being a student once you graduate" - Angie Lau

Thanks!