Business reporting

From January to March 2007, my classes evolved around business reporting, or ECON as it was named on my class schedule. It was an interesting time for me because on the one hand I really enjoyed learning about business but on the other hand I was against how much money some companies made because they understood how to beat the system. I really loved my instructor Joe Mathewson, who had been an editor at The Wall Street Journal, amongst many other well-established media companies. He is, I would guess in his mid to late 70's and still very sharp. I thoroughly enjoyed being taught by him and seeing business in a new light.

Before getting into the course I wore a pair of glasses that viewed business as mean, evil and using people to their maximum ability for minimum wage. That is probably still true in some places in the world, but as I have learned through my class, there are nice people in business too, and business reporting is not all about promoting business, it's also about keeping people up to date on the inner workings of the business world, well as deep in as a reporter is able to at least.

Then, yesterday I read an interesting article in The New York Times, "Business Try to Make Money and Save the World," it's about a fourth sector in the world, which mixes business with non-profit and I love the concept. Basically there are people out there who want to lead a good life but also help the world become a better place. These people want to be profitable while they are improving society and it seems there is a way to do that.

I was against profit, because I thought if I made a profit it must mean someone else isn't. But it probably isn't as clean cut as that. It can be that I can make a profit and share the profit with others. Just like knowledge in a sense, the more I gain, the more I am able to share with others.

I am against stereotypes, and in the past those stereotypes have mainly been focused on culture, gender and race. But now I realise I should change my stereotype about industries too because not all of them are how they are portrayed, and I am glad to have been proven wrong.