INSEAD Seminar Brings the World of Business Home

Editor's Note: Delawese Fulton, a member of our Reynolds Center Circle of Achievement, obtained a better understanding of European business journalists at a seminar in France, which she shares with us here. INSEAD awarded her a scholarship to attend the seminar.

European business journalists are interested in pending changes to international accounting practices because of their convergence with U.S.-based guidelines.

For example, those changes could mean that European corporations may begin listing current instead of non-current assets first on their balance sheets.

The journalists also tend to think about reporting on business more from the angle of business than that of average citizens.

Those are some of my observations from attending the business journalists seminar of the INSEAD international business school held Jan. 8 - 12 in Fontainebleau, France.

Our group of 22 included business journalists from Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Egypt, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Germany, England, France, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland and Bulgaria. Since I was the only journalist from the U.S., the experience also provided me an insider's and outsider's perspective.

The seminar included 8-hour discussion days of financial accounting, company performance, financial markets, globalization, equity firms and buyouts and outsourcing. It also touched on the future of newspapers and media worldwide.

The participants taught each other the difference between the U.S.'s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and those of the International Accounting Standards Board.

Just as American business journalists are concerned about how the globalization of big business is affecting local, traditional operations, European journalists are concerned about foreign private equity firms behaving as "locusts" in markets, such as that of Germany. It seems we all are struggling with success, competition and the melding of capital markets worldwide.

Seminar director Bruce Kogut stressed the importance of journalists having an understanding of the multi-faceted business world and topics inherent to our beats. We should know when and why buyouts occur and why takeovers by private equity firms occur.

However, how we report this information rests with how we see things as journalists. Our goal is to be objective, but we also have mindsets and frames of reference that are constantly positioning against the ideals of our profession and communities.

Many of the European journalists' comments and opinions regarding business and financial news revealed an affinity for reporting from the angle of businesses and about the mechanics of organizations. I found myself and a journalist from the UK among the few advocating for balancing journalistic ideals with social responsibility. Most of the rest seem to side with reporting business as it is rather than using their work as a vehicle for delving into front-door and pocket-book implications.

The seminar culminated with Robert Graham, a former editor of the Financial Times, who talked with us about the passion for quality business journalism. Graham's mantra was that credibility and truth would take us and our profession farther than any exclusive or scoop.

Graham - who had dedicated close to 30 years to business and financial reporting - reminded us that although we are separated by many waters, we share a commonality in the bevy of issues and events we face as business journalists. And that commonality has been nurtured and we are more enlightened by taking advantage of this international experience.

I, too, believe I am a better business journalist because of the seminar, the instructors and my colleagues from afar. This global perspective brought the world of business home for me.

Note: The INSEAD business journalists seminar, which began in 2004, is modeled after a seminar program at the Wharton business school in Pennsylvania.

For more information on the melding of U.S. and international accounting practices, visit the Financial Accounting Standards Board Web site at http://www.fasb.org/news/nr063005.shtml.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism