Becky Bisbee of the Seattle Times: A biz editor for the ages

Becky Bisbee, the business editor of the Seattle Times, is leaving the paper early next month after 16 years.

Bisbee is one of the best, if not the best, business editor at a daily newspaper in the United States. Her section regularly wins Best in Business Awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and her staff — when it does leave — goes to places such as The Wall Street Journal.

Talking Biz News asked past and present colleagues of Bisbee to tell us about what made her so good to work for. Here are some excerpts:

Suzanne LaViolette, business news editor at the Seattle Times:

I’ve worked for previous bosses that threw furniture against walls when they were angry, cursed a blue streak or slammed doors shut. And Becky? What does she do when she gets angry?

She cleans her office.

“Watch out,” I’ve had to warn unsuspecting co-workers who approached her office as she tossed papers into trash cans and straightened books on shelves. “Believe me,” I’d advise them. “You don’t want to go in there now.”

And what does a happy Becky look like?

Everyone knows that great laugh. But there’s another sign, too, one that I’ve often noticed on late Friday afternoons. That’s when she sings the “doo-doo-doo-da-doo” backup vocals from the end of CSN’s “Judy Blue Eyes.”

Rami Grunbaum, deputy business editor at the Seattle Times:

Becky has led the ST business section through some tough times – a strike, a couple of recessions, an industrywide decline in revenues that shrank our roster. I’m not going to say her pragmatism and tough-mindedness traces back to being a butcher’s daughter, but who knows?

Through it all, she’s been a model of leadership — no moping, just figuring out how to get the job done with the resources at hand. And that attitude has led to plenty of highlights — ambitious and hard-hitting stories in which the department she led definitely punched above its weight. For me personally, coming from a background at a much smaller weekly publication, her guidance in working the levers of a big metro daily was invaluable. She’s been excellent at spotting and recruiting talented journalists when such opportunities arose.

Becky also inculcated in the business section staff a strong sense of commitment to our interns and the occasional foreign journalist here on a fellowship, making sure they get good stories, good play and a good experience that will help further their careers. All in all, we will miss her strong representation of us both in the daily news meeting, in the quarterly budget discussions and in the never-ending dialog with our readers.

Mark Watanabe, technology editor at the Seattle Times:

I’ll always remember when she first arrived at The Times, just at a time our Business coverage was expanding. I’m sure that was a lot of her attraction to the job. But two or three months after she started, The Times was hit by a strike that lasted more than a month and a half. Quite a welcome.

It’s been rock and roll ever since, a couple of business cycles, not to mention a tech boom, bust and more boom. Through it all, Becky has been a consistent force, but one who grew through all the changes.

I appreciate her guidance, leadership and the respect with which she treated her staff, providing them the space for them to do their best work.

Amy Martinez, who worked under Bisbee as a business reporter at the Seattle Times from 2006 to 2014. She now is an associate editor of Florida Trend magazine in St. Petersburg, Fla.:

It was the early days of the Amazon Kindle. Breathless press releases announcing record-breaking Kindle sales without disclosure of any actual numbers were becoming fairly common. Initially, the tendency among both the technology blogosphere and traditional media was to take Seattle’s homegrown Internet giant at its word and uncritically report the press releases.

Becky was having none of the ballyhoo. She loathed the uncritical coverage, and from my desk outside her office, I could hear her on the phone taking an editor at a prominent wire service to task for letting Amazon have its way so easily.

As my editor, Becky encouraged me — and just as important, gave me the time and space — to find and pursue stories that companies didn’t necessarily want us to tell. Amazon’s aggressive use of sales-tax laws to gain a price advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers was a story she couldn’t seem to get enough of.

Over the years, amid budget and staff cuts, Becky remained committed to painstaking projects like our annual rankings of CEO pay and public companies. She was not a big believer in doing more with less, however. On days when seemingly every local company had news to report, she’d ask the staff what we thought were the most important stories and set us free to focus on those.

Becky epitomized the Big City Editor: tough, no-nonsense, staunch. But perhaps her greatest quality as a leader, day to day and through all the workplace changes and disruptions, was her professional demeanor, her ability to remain calm and carry on. She was a real pro.

Jon Talton, economics columnist, Seattle Times:

I first met Becky Bisbee at SABEW in the late 1990s, when she was business editor of the Austin American-Statesman and I was the executive business editor of the Charlotte Observer. She immediately impressed me as a rising star with tremendous intelligence and a dry wit. Working for her over the past eight years at the Seattle Times has proved first impressions can indeed be right.

Becky is a great journalist with superb news judgment and a nose for the great story, old school in all the best ways. As the economics columnist, I benefited from her guidance and encouragement. She made me a much better columnist.

For the department, she provided steady leadership during the time of the industry’s greatest turmoil and change amid shrinking resources. She continued to attract talented reporters and give them room to run. No wonder business provides so many high-impact stories to the front page. She will be very missed.

Jay Greene, a former Seattle Times business reporter who now works at The Wall Street Journal:

Becky represents what is best about The Seattle Times, which is to say she was always keen to tackle the big, tough story and make sure we did it right. About six months into my job working for her, I had an idea to write about the challenges that Amazon was facing with regulators, lawmakers and unions in Europe.

The U.S. media hadn’t covered it closely, and the European press didn’t really have a deep understanding of Amazon. Of course, the project required travel to France, Germany, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom at a time when The Times’ budgets were tight. But Becky didn’t shy away from the idea, agreed to spend a good chunk of her precious resources. A few months later I was on plane to Europe.

She opened the checkbook several more time for me to go to India, New York, California and more. But it wasn’t just her willingness to spend money; Becky gave me time, perhaps a more scarce resource these days, to work on bigger pieces to make sure I had my stories nailed. At a time in our business when there is an impulse to crank out commodity coverage to generate clicks, Becky always encouraged me to think big and do original reporting. She gave me the tools to do great work and cleared the way for me to do it.

And Becky was always looking for the next tough story. She knew The Times’ mission is to serve its community, and she pushed me to hold Amazon accountable as I worked to explain the company’s strategy, growth and ambitions.

I’m grateful to have had the chance to work for her.

Brier Dudley, an editorial writer at The Seattle Times who previously worked on the business desk as a reporter:

Becky is a thoughtful and patient newsroom leader who somehow found ways to continue investing in top-flight beat coverage and enterprise reporting despite dwindling budgets and headcount. Her departure will be felt by reporters and readers, including the avid business readers she served so well and who remain some of newspapers’ most dedicated consumers.

Luke Timmerman, a former Seattle Times business reporter who is now editor of the Timmerman Report, which covers biotech:

I worked as a business reporter for Becky Bisbee at The Seattle Times from the day she arrived as business editor in 2000 until I left in 2006. The Seattle Times business team covered many exciting stories in those years, and excelled on big breaking news involving Boeing.

Becky fostered camaraderie, doing little things like inviting the staff to her house for Super Bowl pot-luck parties, which helped create a positive team spirit.

Becky played a key role in helping me grow and thrive as a young reporter. I’ll never forget, in the aftermath of a strike at the newspaper in late 2000 and early 2001, she encouraged me to stick around. At the time, I was covering general assignment business in the Eastside suburban bureau, and the low man on the totem pole in terms of union seniority. I was in a vulnerable position. I was also ambitious for bigger, meatier assignments at the downtown office.

She assured me that “by hook or crook” – one way or another — she was going to work behind the scenes to transfer me to the main business desk downtown. She continued to support me when I took the biotech reporting job, even though I hadn’t studied biology and had to climb a steep learning curve the first couple years.

She even showed up at my launch party when I started the Timmerman Report subscription publication last year, even though I hadn’t seen her in years. She’s really helped facilitate a lot of terrific journalism by many people. I wish her well in whatever she decides to do next.

Dominic Gates, aerospace reporter for the Seattle Times:

Becky has headed the Business News department here since I came to the paper 13 years ago. I’ve been the aerospace/Boeing reporter all that time. She has rarely been my direct editor, but has always been the guiding hand behind the team here.

One key strength of Becky’s was in assembling and reassembling that team. As people have come and gone over the years, Becky has constantly attracted talented replacements as well as a constant stream of go-getting interns. She is a great recruiter.

The secret there was partly her gentle, warm persona but also her commitment to maintaining the high standard of journalism the Seattle Times is known for. She could offer to ambitious prospects enticing business beats — Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks­ —  and would make clear that what she wanted was aggressive, independent oversight of these big companies.

Another important role was marshaling resources for her team. Even as funding contracted in recent years, she always found the money for me to travel where I needed to go. If it was important, she was able to convince the powers that be to provide whatever was needed.

Yet above all, I think each of us came to appreciate Becky’s deeply human management style. She created a Business department with a rare sense of family. She focuses on the people who work for her and what we need to feel secure, to feel productive. She supported me through some times of intense pressure on the job, when Boeing was breathing down my neck, and also at times of more personal trials. She really cared and she always had my back.

I deeply appreciate this support I’ve had from Becky over the years. It’s given me tremendous confidence and freedom in my job and made it a pleasure to come to work here every day. She’s helped make this a dream job.

Kathy Best, editor and vice president of news at the Seattle Times:

Becky is an editor’s dream. She knows her subject matter, sets clear and informed priorities about how to cover it, proactively plugs in to the business conversations around the region and, when confronted with rare challenges, keeps an open mind and responds with hard data and good reporting.

Just as important, Becky has been a newsroom champion for making sure we hire journalists that reflect our region. She has helped us create early connections to diverse journalists through our internship program, which she manages, and has been a vocal advocate for diversity in our hiring at all levels.

And Becky has an eye for talent. Her staff is regularly on the front page and routinely draws significant digital audiences by breaking news about some of Seattle’s most significant employers. They complement their scoops with smart enterprise and analysis stories that make all our readers smarter. And you don’t need to believe me. The wall near Becky’s office is lined with plaques from SABEW offering testaments to the quality of her business staff.

The Seattle Times was damned lucky to convince Becky to trade Texas for the West Coast. Losing her is painful. But she leaves a legacy of talent that she selected, nurtured and trained in newsrooms across the U.S.