Hey, Steven Pearlstein, maybe no one wants to read a corporate profile
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein laments the “death” of business reporting in his July 6 article.
He recounts a recent attempt to get access to Clorox’s leaders and offices to write a corporate profile, i.e. “the sort of corporate profile that used to be the bread and butter of business reporting.”
“Even the prospect of a positive story can’t crack open the door to the executive suite,” he writes, attributing this shift to risk-averse CEOs and an overall lack of trust in the media.
Yes, it’s sad that he got rebuffed — I’ll always argue for transparency, participation with the media, etc. — but I think he missed the larger issue in this navel-gazer.
No one wants to read a corporate profile on Clorox.
Business reporting is all around us — it just looks different from the days of Jack Welch posing on the cover of Newsweek.
In fact I think reporters can and do get even more creative with the raw material companies and their leaders put out into the world:
- What does Wendy’s ongoing social media snark say about its business strategy?
- I dare you not to read Nellie Bowles’ story on Silicon Valley leaders’ affinity for a “hippie hotel” in one sitting. That’s a business culture piece for these times if I’ve ever read one.
- And this Wall Street Journal story might say it all: The balance of power in business is shifting from the old guard to the new.
Sure, this is a broader definition of business reporting, but it’s a different time. We don’t need to wait for a corporate profile to learn about a company’s earnings or funding rounds, or to learn about its CEO. We have the internet for that. Just as most news and information sharing are changing, I would argue that business news can and should, too.
