No matter where in the world you live and report, there are multinational corporations, government policies and international treaties that affect you, your community and your readers. The key is finding the information that brings a broader worldview to local business writing, and puts it in a global perspective. It is a mistake to assume that readers in a small city or rural province are not interested in, say, global trade or international agreements. They just need to understand why they care and what, exactly affects them in their daily lives. It is the job of the business writer to tell them, to figure out how to bring these policies, news and information home to the local level and make it understandable to all levels of readers. There are a number of resources and Web sites at your fingertips to help you find a global angle, and this backgrounder is designed to help you find them. While some examples are of Web sites that are available through U.S.-based Internet Service Providers, many of them are available through international search engines as well. Government-related sites may well have counterparts in other countries.

I. Covering Companies Near You

Companies in your area may be owned by an international conglomerate, may own manufacturing plants around the world, or may have their largest customers or suppliers offshore. We now live in a globalized world, and most companies in the developed and developing world either make products for export, or make their products with at least some components or raw materials they have imported. A full 97 percent of companies exporting products from the United States are small- and medium-sized, meaning that they employ 500 or fewer employees. Every state in the U.S. has at least one exporter; the state of Georgia, for example, has 8,430; the state of Alabama has 2,718. That means more than 11,000 potential stories in these two states alone. To find out where these companies are on a state-by-state basis, broken down by company size, the U.S. Census Bureau keeps track: . In other countries, the Ministry of Commerce or equivalent department may keep such information.

How to get the story

• The Business Angle: Multinational corporations own hundreds of thousands of manufacturing plants around the world. Not only that, but they source their components from hundreds of thousands more companies. Most likely, there is a company or business owned by an international corporation, or that provides goods or services to an international company, near you.

  Example 1: A supplier of fan belts manufacturers in your area. You find out through sources that it sells most of its output to Toyota Motor. Use the web to find out about the parent company, and what its future operational plans are. Simply plugging the name of the company into a basic search engine such as <http://www.google.com> or <http://www.yahoo.com> will yield not only the company website, but news and other information that may have been written about the company as well. <http://www.toyota.com/about/operations> provides a sitemap for its 12 manufacturing plants in North America, and reveals that a 13th plant is planned in Texas. How does that affect your local supplier? Will it need to increase production to meet additional demand?

  Example 2: A large corporation headquartered in your area has a number of operations overseas. What’s going on there? Are there any complaints, problems? Use the Web to find out if there is any coverage in the local newspaper. Many countries in the world have at least one English-language newspaper, often with a business focus. Try to research any news stories that have been written. If it is in a foreign language, use a translation Website such as <http://www.freetranslation.com> or <http://www.babelfish.altavista.com>, to decipher it. If that doesn’t work, try calling the editor of that local newspaper to see if there is anything he or she knows. [Be aware of time differences, <http://www.timeanddate.com> . There are also several good regional publications that may have coverage you may not otherwise see. The Wall Street Journal has European and Asian editions that are not available in each others’ markets, or in the U.S. Its parent company, Dow Jones, also owns The Far Eastern Economic Review, which provides coverage of Asian business issues in English. Likewise, there are trade magazines in English that cover Latin America. North Africa has several reputable publications in French that cover business topics. Start researching online and you never know what you will find.

• The Consumer Angle: People in the community where you live most likely buy some imported products. Where do these products come from? Where are they sold? Who manufacturers them, or harvests them? Is there a story behind them that would be of interest to readers? More broadly, how do the spending habits of consumers affect the balance of trade between your country and the country the products come from?

  Example 1: Increasing numbers of consumers in Brazil are buying more and more products from China. How does that affect the balance of trade between the two countries, and how does it ultimately affect demand for similar types of Brazilian products? What happens to the Brazilian companies that make those products? Is their demand falling? What does that mean for local employment? What kinds of tariff barriers stand in the way of free trade, or can the companies in those countries buy and sell goods from each other freely? What is the status of any trade agreements between the two countries, either bilateral or as part of a regional trade pact, or membership in the World Trade Organization? These questions apply to every imported product in every country on earth.

  Example 2: On a visit to a local supermarket, you see a fruit you have never seen before, with a sign calling it “Starfruit from Thailand.” Ask the manager who supplies them, then track down the wholesaler, then the importer, and ask as specifically as possible where the fruit originates. Do online research on the place of origin. Where they are grown, the conditions under which they are harvested, and their path from orchard to transport to supermarket are all interesting to readers.

  Example 3: A local goat breeding farm exports goat semen to a breeder in a foreign country. The subject matter is engaging enough to readers to keep their patience as you trace the export process, from collection, to the unusual conditions under which it is shipped, to the customs forms and international permissions that must be secured, to what happens to it at the destination.

  Example 4: Pick a local company, such as window maker. Trace the origin of all the components that go into that single product, and write a story about the global nature of business. Almost every reader has windows - or as at least seen them. Where does the sand come from that makes the glass? Where does the rubber window liner come from? What about the metal? And the tools used to install them?

• The Drama Angle: Every good business story is a tale. It has intrigue, protagonists, antagonists, a dramatic climax, and an outcome. Find out who the people are who make the story happen. Who is the CEO? What are the obstacles he or she faces? What are the concerns of the local community regarding environmental sustainability, working conditions, wages, etc? Tell the tale.

  Example 1: “The Best Business Crime Writing of the Year” came out recently. Its editor James Surowiecki, the business writer for The New Yorker, said that in the course of researching how American media covered the corporate scandals of 2002, he found that not one newspaper in Mississippi, the world headquarters of WorldCom, ever profiled its CEO, Bernie Ebbers, one of the most larger-than-life characters in Corporate America and the man who tried to engineer the biggest corporate takeovers in history: the acquisitions of MCI and Sprint. It took the Edmonton, Canada newspaper, where Ebbers was from, to do it right.

• The Economic Angle: You can argue that readers don’t care about esoteric ideas like free trade, globalization, and international treaties. But there is one thing they absolutely do care about - jobs. If the local economy is doing well, almost certainly there are companies behind that, creating jobs, increasing harvests or output, and growing wealth in their communities.

  Example 1: A large international corporation announces it is going to set up a manufacturing plant. Is there competitive bidding in your region/state/city/town? What advantages does your locale offer in terms of an educated or skilled workforce, tax incentives, infrastructural advantages, proximity to transport or developed markets? What does your community stand to gain if it gets the investment, in terms of job creation, increased facilities and infrastructure such as schools and roads, and growing property values? What does it stand to lose, in terms of traffic congestion, potential damage to the environment? If your community loses the bidding, what are the reasons why? What can it do to be more competitive next time around? If it wins, how long will the process take? What legal approvals are involved? Who will be involved? How will that impact the community? A good place to start is the Chamber of Commerce.

  Example 2: A European conglomerate has just purchased an ailing battery manufacturer in your area. Will it lay off workers? Will it pump in additional investment and create new jobs? Use the web to research the parent company, to find out what happened when it has acquired other companies in the past. What was the outcome? What similarities are there to your locale that may indicate what will happen this time? Is there a trade association in your capital city that can tell you more information about the company and its operations?

II. Giving the Global Perspective

Frequently, news stories are more interesting to the reader if they contain a broader perspective. It is also important to read international business publications.

Example 1: You are writing about how NAFTA resulted in the closing of a plant in your community that sent those jobs to Mexico. It is not enough just to write about the local impact. You also need to know the broader context. While many communities have lost jobs, overall U.S. exports to Mexico have increased as a result of NAFTA, from $28.3 billion in 1990 to $101.5 billion in 2001 (http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org). That statistic indicates that some people in the U.S. are benefiting from NAFTA, and jobs are being created here, too. It is worth researching coverage of such issues in global business publications such as BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com), The Economist (http://www.economist.com), and The Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com), before writing. The New York Times is worth a look as well (http://www.nytimes.com). These sites require a paid subscription for ongoing access, or you can purchase archival material for a small fee.

There are a number of online resources that can help with data and statistics and background information to make stories look smart.

GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL BODIES

Facts by Country
Maps, flags, populations, growth rates and various statistics by country. Lists all heads of state and government ministers. Information is usually one year out-of-date.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

International Labour Organization
Guidelines for international labor standards, tips on how to read a balance sheet, global employment trends
http://www.ilo.org

International Monetary Fund
Country-by-country statistics, detailed information on IMF programs in individual countries
www.imf.org http://www.imf.org

NAFTA
Information on trade between the U.S., Mexico and Canada
Press Office: (1-202) 482-5438
http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Sponsors a “Did you know” site: http://www.ustr.gov/html/wto4you.html
[Ex. Between 1994 and 1998, 1.3 million new jobs supported by exports of goods and services have been created in the United States. Over the same period, total U.S. employment increased by 11.7 million jobs, and the unemployment rate declined from 6.1% to 4.5%.]
Press Office: (202) 395-3230

World Bank
Statistics on economic growth rates (World Development Indices), per capita GDP, purchasing power parity (PPP), regional comparisons of growth/literacy/etc., population statistics.
http://www.worldbank.org

World Trade Organization
Offers International Trade Statistics
http://www.wto.org

TRADE GROUPS, INDUSTRY NEWSLETTERS, NON-PROFITS

There are well over 2.5 million of these, according to a recent search engine query. Plug in your area of interest and see what comes up.

Here is a sampling of industry organizations and publications:
Manufacturing News http://www.manufacturingnews.com
Organic Trade Association <http://www.ota.com>
Trade Association for Nude Recreation http://www.tanr.com

Brookings Institution
Produces studies on general economic topics, globalization, poverty reduction. Home to academic experts on specific economies.
http://www.brookings.org/dybdocroot/es/es_hp.htm

Business for Social Responsibility
A member organization dedicated to improving ethical standards at global corporations, hosts human rights seminars for manufacturers. To see if a company in your area is a member, go to http://www.bsr.org

Economic Policy Institute
Left-leaning organization based in Washington, D.C. whichma does policy studies of trade and globalization issues, aev nd U.S. economic policy: http://www.epinet.org

Human Rights Watch
Monitors cnduct of multinational corporations and issues reports; advocates for labor rights in trade negotiations
http://www.hrw.org/labor

Institute for International Economics
Wide-ranging economic and country-specific studies. Home to academic experts on specific economies.
http://www.iie.com