Business journalists face challenges in covering startups

Reporters who cover startups face challenges few other business reporters do. There aren’t as many documents, CEOs can be young and inexperienced and there is no easy way to tell if a company will fail or be the next GrubHub.

At the Society of American Business Editors and Writers annual conference in Chicago, Andrea Hanis, editor of Blue Sky Innovation, moderated a panel about how to overcome startup obstacles.

“We do cover a lot of startups,” she said. “We are flooding the zone, we aren’t right about everybody and we don’t see it as a guarantee that they will succeed or fail.”

Wailin Wong, the editor of The Distance, an online magazine and podcast, and one of the panelists, said she covered the startup beat at the Chicago Tribune when she had no experience covering startups.

“I just went to every even I could and I took every meeting,” she said. “I went to a lot of pitch competitions. I would listen to what the judges and VCs (venture capitalists) would ask the startups.”

Hanis said covering startups often means covering young people.

“Young people are learning the business in a holistic way,” she said. “They are the superstars of the future.”

Wong said the failure rate of startups means that reporters should ask tough questions from the beginning.

“Your job is to cover an emerging industry in your geography that’s going to have an impact on your local economy,” she said. “If it implodes, you’re going to have to cover that too — you’re not a booster.”

Peter Wilkins, a panelist and managing director of Hyde Park Angels investment group that has worked for and with startups, said failure is a familiar story to many startups.

“You need a lot of startups to fail to get winners,” he said.

John Preston, panelist and founder of TEM Capital as well as CEO of Continum Energy Technologies LCC, had a final key piece of advice to journalists looking to looking to found their own startup.

“Have a spouse that is well employed,” he said.

Claire Williams is a senior at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.