Amos Barshad and Carolina Abbott Galvão wrote for Columbia Journalism Review about what it’s like when a business reporter’s entire beat is just one company.
Barshad and Galvão write, “Major corporations in the United States have never been as rich and powerful as they are now. How do you adequately cover any given behemoth? For some reporters, the answer is to make it your whole job.
“We spoke to four reporters whose beats are focused on a single company. These reporters operate within strange parameters: They are deeply intertwined with the companies they cover, spending years collecting secrets and turning dark corners.
“They rarely gain access to leaders at the company itself. But through their obsessiveness, they do outstanding work from the outside in, acting as a check on corporate impunity.
“As Brooks Barnes, who covers Disney for the New York Times, told us, ‘I feel like these companies have all become more and more fortified. At one point I counted how many PR people they have. There’s one of me; there’s an army of them.'”
Read more here.
