Dear Journalist

You made a smart decision to check out UCG as the next step in your career.

UCG is one of the nation's top publishers of specialized business information. In newspaper terms we're the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. (In fact, some of our reporters came from there.)

Good journalists come to UCG because we promote editorial excellence from the top down. Three of UCG's six owners are journalists. One of the company founders wrote the first story on the Watergate break-in; the other covered Vietnam. Today, they both work in our open, bustling newsroom with everybody else.

We've been in business since October 1977 and today publish hundreds of information products, from newsletters and magazines to databases, wire services and books. That's double the amount of just a few years ago.

Our growth and high standards are two reasons UCG is one of the big employers of reporters, editors and publishers in the Washington, D.C. area. Most of those who work here come from newspapers, magazines and TV news. Then they get hooked on our award-winning journalism.

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Here's What You Stand to Gain from UCG

More Autonomy. We hire smart journalists and trust them to call the shots on coverage. Rather than tell you what to write, we count on you to be creative and to set the publication's course. As long as you're producing quality content and making deadlines, there is little intervention from your manager, whose role is more that of a coach than of a boss. Here's another autonomy point: Nobody's going to order you to kill a story or to spin it to keep advertisers happy. Chase all the controversial stories you want. Bottom line: you have the freedom to make your publication your own creation.

More Challenging. At UCG, being a journalist engages many of your skills, some you didn't even know about. It's the thrill of smooth-talking secret memos out of a background source at a Fortune 500 company, of striking it rich under the Freedom of Information Act. It's the satisfaction of developing a national source network of entrepreneurs, attorneys, regulators and consultants who whisper to you what they'd never tell the local paper.

UCG publisher Jonathan Stern at a Hawk's game with basketball legend Dominique Wilkins and Bo Outlaw. UCG partners own significant stakes in the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, and operating rights to Atlanta's Philips Arena. UCG frequently uses its special access to the teams and the arena to benefit our employees and our clients.

And all the while, you become a recognized expert in the field you cover. That means The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, and 60 Minutes could be interviewing you as they do many of our journalists throughout the year.

More Impact. The stories our journalists print spark congressional investigations into wrongdoing at major oil companies, help hospitals improve patient care, prevent banks from failing, show CPAs how to cut their clients' tax bills, uncover fraud in the Medicare program, and help funeral homes better serve grieving families. You can make the same contribution.

More Feedback. UCG's readers constantly sound off with letters of thanks or a phone call when they disagree with a story. Remember, they're paying a lot of money for just one subscription. They read every word. And you'll hear from them. Bank on it.

More Money and Opportunity. We pay talented reporters top dollar, and there's no limit on how much you can earn or how far you can go here. If you're like most, you're striving toward a salary goal. To help you reach it we have removed the traditional barriers found at other news organizations.

At UCG, you can receive a raise at any time, rather than have to wait for the big January review. There are no corporate caps on raises, so you and your manager are free to discuss pay increases of any size, whatever makes sense in light of your past performance and the new responsibilities you take on. There are no pay scales, either.

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3 Promises UCG Makes to Every Journalist We Hire

1. We'll respect you.
2. We'll help you grow and develop.
3. We'll give you the tools you need.

Let's start with respect. You won't find power-tripping editors looking over your shoulder. Instead, our managers play to your strengths and help you improve where needed. Our managers know what it's like to tackle a new, unfamiliar beat, to work a hostile source, or to have a big story fall apart hours before deadline. Rather than nagging and finger-pointing you get support and encouragement from a manager who's been there.

Growth and development. We hear it all the time from talented journalists who apply here for jobs. "I don't get enough support from my editors." Here you will, from editorial managers who've beaten the big dailies, who've brought corporate flacks to their knees, and who know how to pack more meat into six pages than most papers deliver in their entire A Section.

No matter what your skill level is right now, you'll be a better reporter and writer after just a few months on the job at UCG. We're also committed to formal editorial training. For example, every other month, all our reporters, editors and publishers gather for in-house seminars where they teach one another how to improve phone interviewing techniques, to write snappier headlines and leads and more. To help our reporters master their beats, we send them to special college programs on banking, finance, health care and the like. We want you to become the best journalist possible. If your dream is to write for a large metro daily, wire service or national magazine, great. We'll help you get there. Some of our journalists have gone on to work for other national news organizations. But most stay here, because they're constantly challenged.

What about tools to do your job? Today, you need more than a telephone and a notebook to be a good reporter. So at UCG you get your own state-of-the-art computer equipped with Microsoft Office XP and a full set of software tools, including Excel for data analysis. You also get your own email address and Internet access. We're boosters of computer-assisted reporting. Many UCG reporters moderate Internet discussion groups for their readers - a tremendous source of stories. Plus, we have an in-house staff of over 50 programmers and technicians to give you plenty of technical support.

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Want to Win Some Awards? UCG Is the Right Place for That.

Our company has won 95 awards for editorial excellence since the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers' Foundation started giving them out in 1980 - more than any other business publisher. The competition is international and fierce: This year, our entries competed against nearly 400 others.

UCG is also the only publisher to win NEPF awards each year for the last 25 years. "There is no other company coming anywhere close to UCG's record," says Patti Wysocki, former executive director of the Newsletter Publishers' Association.

By the way, UCG has a unique way of picking our submissions for national competition. Instead of letting senior management make the call, as many of our competitors do, we run an in-house contest each February. A panel of outside judges chooses the winners, whose stories get entered in the national competition. First place winners of the UCG contest receive cash awards and recognition at a special awards banquet.

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Niche Journalism is the Future - and UCG Is Out in Front

As newspaper readership (and jobs) plummeted in the past decade, guess what? The number of subscription newsletters in the U.S. and Canada more than doubled, driven by a growing demand for timely niche-specific news and guidance. Our newsletters serve hundreds of thousands of professionals in every major sector of American enterprise: banks, hospitals, physician practices, telecommunications companies, accounting firms and oil companies, to name a few. As part of UCG's crackerjack editorial team, you would write for top industry leaders around the globe.

Medill has sent graduate students to study UCG, "because it provides an excellent model of a company that provides a creative, open-communication business environment along with an over-arching commitment to high quality journalism," says Prof. David Nelson. "UCG is an industry leader in computer-assisted reporting and in-depth analytical articles. Other media could benefit by studying its operations," he says.

Journalist Nicholas Rummell interned at UCG while a student at the University of Missouri journalism school, then joined our staff after graduation in 2003. Within a year, he was winning first-place cash prizes in our in-house journalism contest for stories that revealed confidential settlement negotiations in a class-action lawsuit against commercial insurers. He also uncovered secret deals between software vendors and insurance companies to keep money out of doctors’ hands. “You get to explore areas in your beat that most mainstream publications don’t look at. It’s part of what our readers want—and what makes UCG such a great place to be a reporter—finding out how things in your beat work, and when and how they break down.” He now chases stories for IA Week, a publication that covers SEC regulatory compliance for an audience of investment advisers and investment companies.

"If you're planning to advance your career in journalism, I can't think of a better place to be than UCG, which is one of our larger members," says Patti Wysocki, former executive director of the Newsletter Publishers' Association. In 1997, UCG founders Ed Peskowitz and Bruce Levenson were inducted into NPA's Newsletter Publisher Hall of Fame.

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On a Personal Note...

My name is Dan Brown. I'm one of UCG's six partners. I thought my story might interest you.

In July 1983 I got a call from UCG to tell me about a job opening on a weekly banking newsletter. Coming from the newspaper world, I knew nothing about newsletters and I was hesitant. But being able to earn more money and to cover a fascinating beat in depth persuaded me to accept the job offer. So, I went from covering county zoning board meetings to grilling bank presidents and FDIC chairmen. I loved it.  

Three years and $30,000 in raises later, I found myself executive editor of a division of newsletters and selling banking articles to The New York Times and The Boston Globe, which UCG encouraged. By 1990 I was helping to run the company's editorial operations. Today, my job continues to change and keep me interested.

This is a long way of saying I guarantee you'd find UCG a terrific place to work. Check out our editorial job listings on this web site. By the way, if you'd like to schedule an informal chat to learn more about UCG, give me a ring. My direct line is 301.287.2254. I'd be happy to arrange a meeting and tour of our newsroom.

I'm Lisa Getter. This is my story.

After more than 22 years at daily newspapers, I left the Los Angeles Times in early 2005 to become UCG's editorial director.

I had spent most of my newspaper career as an investigative reporter-first at the Miami Herald and then at the Times' Washington bureau. I'd served on the national board of Investigative Reporters and Editors, won my share of the top journalism prizes (including a Nieman Fellowship and spots on two Pulitzer teams), and helped break national news stories.

But UCG offered me something I couldn't get at a large daily paper: A flexible work schedule and the freedom to practice cutting-edge journalism without increasing corporate pressure to cut the bottom line. Finally, I could juggle my personal and professional lives without sacrificing either.

I was amazed to discover that a privately-owned company like UCG put such a high value on investigative reporting. Among my other duties, I help train the journalists here on ways to improve their investigative reporting skills. I'm also on the lookout for talent for our award-winning newsletters and magazines.

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