Data & Tools for Understanding Our State & Our Local Economies
September 29th, 2009
University of Nevada, Reno
Simulation Scenario #8 - NEWSPAPER BUSINESS REPORTER COLUMN
Situation & Setting
Use the REAP site to provide professional quality graphics and illustrations for an article on the economic conditions of Eureka, Nevada in just a few short minutes.
Your boss has been asked to write a guest column in the business reporting section of the Eureka Times. This column will be an overview of the regional economic activity of the region. Eureka just happens to be in Eureka County, Nevada. Your boss will do the writing, but needs your help with the graphics and short captions/vignettes for the paper. The column is going to print tomorrow morning, so you need to have this done within a few hours.
Your Assignment
Your task is to come up with the following:
Your boss is writing about the change in total employment and income over time, and needs graphics to symbolize this. This is a perfect task for the "Comparative Trends Analysis" module of the REAP website.
On the left menu, click on "Comparative Trends Analysis", then "Employment"
Click on "Eureka County" in the menu to the right and any other county of interest, then click "Generate & Display Output"
Scroll down to the first Figure. Eureka County is growing, right? However, scroll down one more figure, to Figure 2. Which figure is more descriptive of the performance of the Eureka County economy over time? Scroll down and consider all of the other figures, choosing one or two that best describe the employment picture for Eureka County over time. Copy and paste those graphics to your PowerPoint presentation.
Go back and repeat the above steps but replace "Employment" with "Personal Income" and "Per Capita Income". Pay particular attention to figures 2 and 6, and select one or two for your report.
LSGL (Leading, Slipping, Gaining, Lagging) Analysis of population and employment: Now that you have selected some basic graphics to illustrate the performance of Eureka County, we turn to LSGL to compare Eureka County with the rest of Nevada. This approach is frequently used in business and financial journalism because of the large amount of comparative data it provides in an efficient manner.
On the left menu, click on "LSGL Analysis", then "Population"
Click on "Eureka" to the far right of the screen
Browse the LSGL population graphics, and select one or two for inclusion in your report. In Windows Vista, you can copy the images by clicking on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen, enter "Snipping" in the search box. Hit enter, which will open the Snipping tool, and select new rectangular snip. Then, outline the graphics you would like to use and copy them to your PowerPoint presentation template.
Pay particular attention to figure 2, which is frequently used as a graphic for the press. What does this indicate about the population characteristics of Eureka County as compared with the rest of Nevada?
Note the salmon-colored vignettes which are written in a very journalistic style. Consider whether to include these as descriptive elements and/or captions for your PowerPoint presentation.
Repeat the above steps to conduct LSGL analysis for employment.
LOCATION QUOTIENTS: These steps will show us the magnitude of concentration of employment and earnings for these counties.
On the left menu, click on "Industry Structure and Performance", then "Industries By County" and "Employment"
Click on "Eureka" on the menu to the right
Note the difference in employment location quotients between the counties. Note industries that have high location quotients (the third numeric column from the left in Table 1). Make sure to identify the industries that have a high level of concentration in the local economy
BRAINSTORM: (time permitting) There is a wealth of data at your fingertips on the REAP site. Browse the modules, and consider whether any of them offer additional information that could embolden your presentation. Consider finding the section of the REAP site that shows the average earnings per job. Remember, people reading the paper are very volatile, and they get either (1) get upset when they read that they have less than the median income in a region, or (2) get smug/happy (and save the clipping for future reinforcement) when they have a higher than average income in a region. This leads to increased interest and readership!
CONSTRUCT YOUR PRESENTATION: Be sure to include the following in your presentation:
A Map. Every regional economic story in the popular press includes at least one map!
Overall employment and income trend graphic(s)
LSGL analysis graphics. These are vital for the popular press, especially when a regional economy deviates from the benchmark. Make sure to include the primary scatter plot that shows Eureka vs. Nevada, from population and employment perspectives
Key employer graphic or table from the Location Quotient analysis. The major industries, especially in rural economies, are very important features of any story on regional economic trends
