Wednesday was a busy day preparing for the start of sessions on Thursday, but one panel was already under way -- “Breaking Local Stories with Economic Data,” hosted by the (Sponsored by Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism).

Paul Overberg of USA Today and Thomas Dall and Jeannine Aversa of the Bureau of Economic Analysis shared tips on using data to uncover local economic trends that set your reporting apart.

The release of the five-year Economic Census provides a timely opportunity to track changes between 2007 and 2012.

Here’s a quick snapshot from the Reynolds Center post of ...

Veteran journalist Mary Fricker has put together a guide for the Reynolds Business Journalism Center on how to cover the repurchase market and shadow banking, which she says is "inherently unstable. It triggered the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008. It’s a key reason that our recovery is weak. Yet in 2008, when the financial markets were collapsing, no one I knew had ever heard of it, including me. Now that’s a great story.”

The following elements are part of Fricker's coverage  guide:

• An introduction
• Resources
• Story ideas
• Tips for localizing

Fricker has also helped put together ...

As the White House and Congressional Republicans inch toward an agreement before the fiscal cliff deadline, the opportunity remains for digging deeper into the federal budget and the impact of a deal -- or lack of deal -- on both the country's broad economic health and local communities. Find help in these links and resources.

Econocheck
A collaboration between IRE and the Sunlight Foundation, Econocheck is free to both members and non-members. It offers a wealth of data for covering the economy, including the following topics:

• Jobs and Employment
• Taxes, Government Finances and Debt
• Health Care and Insurance 
• Prices and Inflation ...

Last month, the Oklahoma Impact Team for KWTV News 9 in Oklahoma City and KOTV News on 6 in Tulsa, Okla., examined the much-touted Oklahoma Quality Jobs Program to see if it works as intended or amounts to a corporate giveaway. They found that three-quarters of a billion dollars in tax rebates have been awarded to approximately 660 companies, some of which have eliminated jobs or sent jobs overseas while collecting payments under the program. Companies met job-creation predictions about one-third of the time.

Alex Cameron and Jeff Raymond of the Oklahoma Impact Team for KWTV and KOTV sent IRE ...

Can a 50-story Las Vegas hotel be environmentally-friendly?  This is the question USA Today reporter Tom Frank sought to answer when he began reporting on the increase in construction of so-called environmentally friendly buildings.  Through his investigation, Frank found that green commercial construction has increased.  Non-profits are behind the movement, but few have assessed the real impact of their programs.  Often, green building improvements are simply cheap routes to large tax breaks.  Frank’s ongoing Green Inc. series explores the challenges non-profit groups face in helping for-profit businesses “go green.”

His investigation began with an online search of the U ...

In the wake of a disaster, individuals and business owners are often left with severely damaged property. Many turn for help to the Small Business Administration, which approves low-interest loans to help rebuild. For declared disasters in 2011 alone, the Small Business Administration approved over $1 billion in loans.

NICAR has updated the SBA database of these loans, which is now current through Sept. 2012. 

WHAT'S IN IT?
Disaster loans through the SBA are one of the primary forms of federal assistance for individuals and non-farm, private-sector businesses who have suffered losses. The data have information on the borrower ...

NICAR adviser David Herzog will be on hand Tuesday, Nov. 20 at 2 p.m Eastern (11 a.m. Pacific) for a live Q&A about EconoCheck on the Journalism Accelerator. EconoCheck, an IRE-Sunlight Foundation resource launched during the 2012 campaign, helps reporters quickly find and understand data about key indicators. Drop by to discuss how journalists can continue to tap into it for post-election economic reporting and how we might improve it.

What do you think about the way EconoCheck presents tools and information? Please join us to share your experience and ask anything you want to know.

Courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch

When Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner began researching credit report errors in 2010, virtually everyone they spoke with knew someone who had been affected.  Although the industry lacks an official outlet for consumers to dispute credit claims, the reporters’ nationwide FOIA requests returned nearly 28,000 files from the Federal Trade Commission and an additional 2,000 files from attorneys general in 24 states.  In 2012, they began using the data to create their “Credit Scars” series for The Columbus Dispatch.

After receiving the initial 28,000 complaint files from the FTC, Riepenhoff and Wagner ...

Economic issues have taken center stage during this year's elections. Candidates for office are trying to tap into voters' discontent about unemployment, government spending and housing.

It's easy for journalists and the public to get lost when politicians toss out economic statistics to score points. So IRE and the Sunlight Foundation have teamed up to bring you EconoCheck, which provides details about these key economic stats and links to the source data.

Bill Allison, Sunlight's editorial director, offers examples of recent candidate claims that EconoCheck can help you evaluate in your reporting.

EconoCheck is funded by a ...

Bad economic news from Wall Street to Main Street has dominated the news for months, but the broader debate over whether the middle class is endangered has raged for decades. In this brawl, newspapers largely sit on the sidelines. Most reporters — myself included — don't have the education or expertise to evaluate the reams of statistics and the conflicting interpretations of academic and think-tank studies. That frustration motivated me to go at the story more directly by doing original research as part of a six-month Kiplinger journalism fellowship at Ohio State University in 2007. The immediate aim of the research ...