Market News International
Market News is a financial news wire headquartered in New York, with bureaus in Washington D.C., Chicago, London, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Germany and other cities. I reported part-time as an intern for the Washington bureau in the spring of 2009.
Market News produces financial reporting, analysis and data as quickly as it can be accurately reported, largely to finance professionals. The focus is on currency and securities trading, but anything with a financial hook or policy implication is covered, with special emphasis of the actions of government and multinational banks in Washington.
Market News produces financial reporting, analysis and data as quickly as it can be accurately reported, largely to finance professionals. The focus is on currency and securities trading, but anything with a financial hook or policy implication is covered, with special emphasis of the actions of government and multinational banks in Washington.
Highlights of my work
From day one at Market News I was treated as a regular reporter. It was challenging at first to boil complex and multifaceted stories down to their bare financial implications. Market News readers are interested in clear summaries of financial impacts, and such a defined focus ran counter to some of the instincts I had developed over the course of general assignment reporting.
Once I had a handle on the concise, quick-turnaround wire style, I found myself with the freedom to cover the financial events and issues in Washington that I thought were most important. With my natural interest in politics, this to coverage of congressional hearings and legislation in the early going. My first days at Market News came at the height of the investigations into TARP and AIG and the passage of the stimulus bill, and I couldn't escape the sense that I was at the eye of the storm in the financial crisis.
The highlight of my time at Market News came at the end, when I spent a weekend reporting on the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank Group meetings. By then I had a good grasp of the financial crisis and its international causes and implications, and was able to write with authority and ask informed questions of the banking and policy heavyweights who converged in Washington for the meetings. The bureau turned out more than thirty articles during the three-day meetings, and my byline was on a quarter of them.
Once I had a handle on the concise, quick-turnaround wire style, I found myself with the freedom to cover the financial events and issues in Washington that I thought were most important. With my natural interest in politics, this to coverage of congressional hearings and legislation in the early going. My first days at Market News came at the height of the investigations into TARP and AIG and the passage of the stimulus bill, and I couldn't escape the sense that I was at the eye of the storm in the financial crisis.
The highlight of my time at Market News came at the end, when I spent a weekend reporting on the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank Group meetings. By then I had a good grasp of the financial crisis and its international causes and implications, and was able to write with authority and ask informed questions of the banking and policy heavyweights who converged in Washington for the meetings. The bureau turned out more than thirty articles during the three-day meetings, and my byline was on a quarter of them.
Selected Clips
| TARP Treasury Overpay |
Was among the first to break the news that Treasury substantially overpaid for bad assets in the first Wall Street bailout.
| Schumer-Shelby Fraud Bill |
The introduction of a bill to combat corporate fraud in the wake of the Bernard Madoff scandal by a couple of Senate leaders. Some interesting perspective on the rollback of FBI enforcement when priorities changed after the Sept. 11 attacks.
| Obama-Biden Middle Class Task Force |
My first reporting from the White House, on the signing of a set of executive orders that rolled back some Bush-era policies toward organized labor.
| G20 Trade Barrier Analysis |
My longest piece for Market News: a feature on the widespread fears about protectionism during the early international response to the financial crisis. Interviewed several experts on trade and the global economy.
| Senators Cautioned on IMF Prediction |
This came at the peak of the political side of the financial crisis in Washington. At a hearing the day after the passage of President Obama's stimulus bill, senators from both parties agreed that it was a flawed response, and an expert testified that it would still be a long road to economic growth.
| Volcker Testimony Joint Economic Committee |
White House economic adviser Paul Volcker assures Congress that bank recapitalization programs will not approach "nationalization," a point of fierce political debate at the time. I would have preferred to work in some political details here that weren't appropriate for Market News, especially how rare it was that senators and representatives showed incredible deference to a member of the Obama administration. Many treated his commentary as unquestionable wisdom, largely because of his role in righting the national economic ship after the savings and loan crisis.
| Obama Afghanistan Strategy |
President Obama's second big announcement on Afghanistan: an increase in troop strength combined with a new aid package to Pakistan.