Jeanna Smialek writes about the Federal Reserve and the economy for The New York Times. I think a lot of people who aren’t super business savvy or know a ton of the language surrounding the financial markets shy away from the business category on the NYT website, but Jeanna does an amazing job to make this information accessible to every reader.

Most of her leads are basic in nature, and get to the point right away in what the article will be about. She usually ends her articles with a powerful quote from a figure of high authority which creates a strong ending. In general she has great use of quotes, never using long quote blocks, but rather short blurbs that immediately support the point she is demonstrating. All of her writing is concise and easily digested- she explains very confusing concepts surrounding the Federal Reserve in simple terms and concrete evidence or examples.

I watched a few clips of Jeanna speaking on Bloomberg News, and was surprised when this adorable and soft spoken women came on the screen. She stuttered often and seemed very quiet, which made it that much cooler that her writing is so compelling and confident. In Jeanna’s writing she often creates a nutgraf that not only contributes to the bigger picture but ties her whole story together, connecting moves by the Federal Reserve to other events and trends happening in the world. Some of her latest articles talk about how the Corona virus has been affecting Fed policies, and how millennial’s behavior patterns and tendency to save could affect Fed interest rates in the future. I will make sure in my writing to have strong nutgrafs like she does in her stories, and to use short, concise quotes in a way that is supportive but doesn’t take away from or interrupt the story.