Journalism Education: If you teach reporting, especially public affairs, you must download this financial guide

If you teach public affairs reporting -- or are a journalist who has to deal with local government -- you really should download Governing magazine's "A Public Official's Guide to Financial Literacy."

Fantastic teaching tool.

Plain English.

Any guide that gives your students (or you) a fighting chance of understanding GO vs. the types of revenue bonds; or cash, accrual and modified accrual accounting (gotta know that to be able to read the financials) is worth every minute you spend with it (and that won't be many because it's only 34 easy-to-digest pages).

(I should warn you, you will be asked for copious info (name, phone, employer) as many of these marketing things do. But I can say without hesitation that I have never been spammed by Governing. I get an occasional entreaty to a conference, but that is minor at best in return for a free subscription to the magazine and access to things like this. (Personally, I think every reporter or editor covering the city or county should be getting a copy of Governing or at least its daily email of top stories.) )