Swisher on when reporting leads to conclusions

Kara Swisher

Harry McCracken of Fast Company spoke with legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher about her career in advance of her new book being released on Tuesday:

Here is an excerpt:

You talk in the book about instances in which you gave advice to some of these tech executives. The upshot is usually that they didn’t follow it. But can you talk about squaring that with your role as a journalist?
By that time, I was a columnist. I didn’t do it when I was doing beat reporting with the Wall Street Journal. But when it evolved into All Things D, if you noticed, we had a point of view and we said it publicly. I got a lot of flack for that. It’s like, “How can your reporters say what they think?” I’m like, “Because they reported it and came to a conclusion, and they’re allowed to do that.”
It had to be based on reporting. Peter Kafka is an excellent example of that. He’s like, “Comcast did this today. Here’s why they did it. Let me tell you what I think is happening here.” And everybody does it now.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.