Meredith Klein of Meredith and the Media interviewed Wall Street Journal reporter Isabelle Bousquette about her job.
Here is an excerpt:
Your stories explore large-scale technology efforts at Fortune 500 companies and topics of significance to chief information officers. You also frequently write on the benefits and drawbacks of emerging technologies and the role they play in the corporate world. Can you share more about what’s driving your coverage?
- What I learned as a journalist on the first day of journalism school is that the biggest asset in this industry as a reporter is to talk to people. That’s what they told us on day one of J-school. It was a really overwhelming thing, because this generation, we’re all afraid to talk to people. We’re all afraid to go up to strangers. We’re all afraid to dial someone on the phone who’s not expecting our phone call. It’s so funny because a lot of journalists are introverts.
- But I’ve gotten so used to talking to people. I talk to people all day. I talk to people who are in all different kinds of roles, different kinds of perspectives. I take so many informational calls that are not tied to stories. I try to really get out there, and then, based on all that, I go to sleep at night and percolate, or, I go on a walk, and I’m like, “Oh, that thing that person said, it’s a good headline. That thing is a story.” Or, “Three people brought this up to me today. That is something that’s worth writing about.”
- The majority of what I write about is based on being out there and talking to people, and then reflecting on the themes that emerge as being important in my mind. But what’s driving the coverage at the end of the day? Interesting things. This job is fun, and I always want it to be fun, so I write about things that are fun for me and that I find interesting, and that I would bring up at a dinner party if I was sitting next to someone and be like, “Oh, this is cool.” I don’t ever want to write about a story and be like, “This is so boring and niche. Why is this news?”
Read more here.
