Josh Harkinson presents "10 Economic Stories to Jump on Now" during the free business journalism workshop, "Covering Your Local Economy: It's Everybody's Business." For more free resources on business journalism, please visit businessjournalism.org.

1. 10 Economic Stories
To Jump On Now
Easy ways to find great narratives that
resonate beyond the financial pages

2. Background: It’s The Inequality, Stupid!

3. Even as the wealthy earn a larger share, they
get taxed less. . .

4. You have nothing to lose but your gains
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Congressional Budget Office, Economic Policy Institute,
Census Bureau

5. Growth is back
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
Stephen Gordon, Université Laval

6. But jobs aren’t
Source: Ibid

7. Meanwhile, people who still have jobs are
working harder
Source: Center for American Progress

8. 1) Localize the inequality story

9. Back To Work
Meet the region’s skilled but undervalued workers
By Joe O’Sullivan
Starts at a job recruitment seminar with compelling narrative of
out-of-luck workers looking for a break.
Nut graf:
Colvin is one of many in the region who had, until recently, led
a largely middle-class life. . .But as the middle class faces stiff
headwinds, Colvin and about 20,000 others in Spokane County
must scrap for a living . . .These jobseekers must also contend
with the Inland Northwest’s shift to a more diversified economy
that demands specialized education and skills. And they must
make these transitions in an era of stagnant wages and rising
education and health costs.

10. Great stats in this story:
• Region has seen a 26% decline in manufacturing jobs
since 2000
• “Between 2000 and 2010, the largest share of Spokane-
area job growth occurred in the 40 percent of jobs that
paid the least”
• “[P]eople in Spokane County have the same purchasing
power they had in 1996.”
• Places in context of national trends: flat wages, rising
healthcare costs, decline of unions, cuts to universities

11. Where to find this kind of info
• Purchasing power stat came from a local economics
professor
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• US Census Bureau
• Local Chambers of Commerce often pull together
economic stats
• Regional development councils and associations of
governments

12. How to really localize the inequality story
" The US Census Bureau measures income inequality by
county
" How they measure it: the Gini Coefficient
" Their survey happens every 3 years. Most recent survey
was in 2010.
" Use this data to see how counties in your area compare
to each other and against other regions.

13. 2) Tell the story of a besieged Middle
Class worker in first person
" Steven: Air-traffic controller, Florida

14. I told them to get somebody else to help me
track all these airplanes. And then as I sat
up in my chair to reposition myself, I totally
lost the picture. I'm like, Oh shit. There were
five pieces of the puzzle that I was juggling
and I couldn't remember where they were
going. The backup guy saved me. But in the
six years since we developed a severe
staffing shortage, that kind of backup
hasn't always been available.

15. The “As Told To” Format
" Captures voice and words of subject as much as
possible, but. . .
" Highly edited for brevity and clarity. You may need to
write your own transitions between thoughts.
" Feels more real and direct than third-person accounts.
Perfect for telling tales of regular folks
" Can work as a package of several narratives
" See Texas Monthly for other great examples

16. 3) Become a wage slave and write it up

17. Otherwise known as the
Barbara Ehrenreich approach
" Find a job that exemplifies the challenges of the middle
class and apply for it
" Beware of the legal implications: Don’t lie on your
resume and don’t disclose the name of the business
" You can bring in stats from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the National Labor Relations Board, and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration

18. 4) Squatters and Foreclosure
Defenders

19. Last Thursday in New York City, a soft-spoken
man with a thick beard, whom I'll call Paul,
casually approached a brick apartment building
and broke off a padlock with a bolt cutter. A
spotter called to say a squad car was on its way, but
Paul didn't feel his phone vibrate; he was too busy
jamming a crowbar in the door. "Fortunately, the
cop car just drove up the street and turned," he
recalls a few days later as he and his wife wait at a
subway stop to meet up with members of his
cleanup crew. He'd installed his own lock on the
door, which led to a vacant unit where the crew
hoped to install a family of squatters.

20. " Take Back the Land: a sort of squatting
umbrella organization
" Squatters vs foreclosure defenders
" Check with people in your local Occupy
group
" Check with housing rights
organizations, such as the National
Economic and Social Rights Initiative

21. 5) Profile your local plutocrat

22. Where do I start?
" The Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans
" Forbes list of America’s highest-paid CEOs
" Contact your county tax assessor to see if you can get a
list of the names of the biggest property tax payers
" Cross-check names against local, state, and federal
campaign contributions and lobbying records
" If you can’t get an interview, buttonhole them at public
events

23. Look for a local angle
" A few examples from my own reporting:
" Michael Dell: The Making of an American Oligarch
How a homegrown geek outsourced, downsized, and tax-
breaked his was to the top
Dell began in Austin and landed huge local subsidies
before shipping jobs overseas
" Ira Rennert’s helicopter ignites a class war in the
Hamptons (in the next issue)
Helicopter noise pits the merely wealthy against the
fantastically wealthy, illuminating multiple class divides

24. 6) Profile businesses that serve billionaires

25. Ideas
" Executive protection firms. They are all over the country
" Firms that train “executive protection dogs,” which sell for
up to $230,000 each (a bargain compared to human guards)
" Armored car companies
" People who build “safe rooms” and other elaborate security
systems
" Modern butlers
" Fancy restaurants that serve VIPs

26. 7) Profile a wealthy neighborhood

28. " People of similar incomes tend to cluster in the same
neighborhoods, which means you probably have a zip
code like Highland Park in your area
" Chances are, the zip code in question is tops in
something, and that can be your hook. For example,
the Beretta handgun store in Highland Park sells more
guns than any other Beretta store in the world. That
was how I began the piece.
" This is why it’s important to talk to business owners

29. 8) Warren Buffett and other heretics
Net worth: $44 billion

30. " Warren Buffett doesn’t think it’s fair that
he’s taxed at a lower rate than his
secretary. He’s the namesake of Obama’s
tax-the-rich plan, the Buffett Rule.
" Why is this story appealing?
" It’s counter-intuitive
" There are plenty of other Warren Buffetts
out there

31. This guy is the former head of the Pacific
Stock Exchange

32. This woman is a Harvard-trained quantitative
trader who worked at Larry Summers’ hedge fund
More recently, she founded Occupy Wall Street’s Alternative Banking
Group, along with a bunch of other Wall Street insiders, to advocate for
stronger financial regulations

33. How do you find these people?
" Go to protests and talk to lots of folks
" Look for recent retirees and people who have changed
careers. They are more willing to talk.
" Look for really wealthy people who are involved in
grassroots political groups such as MoveOn.org and get
to know them and their friends

34. 9) Hedge-Fund Landlords

35. " While renting out houses has typically been the
province of mom-and-pop landlords, it should
come as no surprise that Wall Street wants in.
For years, a glut of foreclosures has suppressed
home prices even as tighter lending standards
and a sluggish economy have kept many buyers
away. Banks, meanwhile, still sit on huge
"shadow" inventories of foreclosed and
abandoned properties, which means fewer
places for people to live. The result of all this is
a red-hot rental market—primed for speculation

36. " In February, the Federal Housing Finance Agency
announced a pilot program to sell discounted batches
of Fannie Mae-owned homes to large investors in six
major urban areas on the condition that the buyers
lease out the properties.
" Advocates claim the program will give blighted
properties a makeover and provide displaced
homeowners with more rental options.
" Critics worry that these landlords could become white-
glove slumlords, that converting houses to rental
homes will lower property values in the long-run, and
that consolidating ownership will increase rents in the
long-run

37. How to report this story
" Realtors should know which private equity groups are
big players in your area
" Many cities have agencies that field complaints from
renters. You can see if hedge-fund landlords are doing a
good job.
" Look for lawsuits against the companies. For example,
hedge fund foreclosure-to-rental player Carrington
Investments has been sued more than 100 times. Its
founder claimed to have invented mortgage-backed
subprime securities.

38. 10) Decaying cities as laboratories for
innovation

39. Artists and innovators reshape the economy
" Phil Cooley’s latest Corktown project, the Pony Ride,
has a fun name but a serious mission: To turn the
foreclosure crisis on its head. The Slows Bar BQ owner
beat out would-be land speculators in a tax sale this
spring, purchasing a 30,000-square-foot building at the
corner of Porter and Vermont for a cool $100,000.
Instead of sitting on the property, Cooley is offering
cheap or near-free rent to socially conscious
entrepreneurs and artists committed to improving the
community.

40. Metro Times covers artist who paints mural at
Pony Ride

41. Metro Times, May 8, 2012
" The street artist known as Revok, who has all but been
chased out of Los Angeles for his work there, has found
a receptive greeting in Detroit. The artist, who has
reportedly moved into a space in Eastern Market, has
been making friends all over town, delighted to have a
famous artist adorn our buildings. “I got off the plane
and started driving around, sliding all over the ice in
the streets and fell in love with it instantly,” he said.
“This place is fucking awesome.”