A business reporter’s advice: Act like people should be talking to you

Linette Lopez

Charlotte Cowles of The M Dash interviewed Business Insider senior finance correspondent Linette Lopez about her job.

Here is an excerpt:

I’M FASCINATED BY POWER, so business reporting is perfect for me, although I didn’t know it until grad school. A lot of students aren’t interested in business journalism because it doesn’t sound sexy and adventurous. When I taught at Columbia last year, my students wanted to go to Nigeria or Syria and like, get kidnapped. I was like, “I’d rather to go to Gstaad.”
THE WORST THING a journalist can do is be deferential. I’m not afraid of anybody. I do not care who you are—I have questions, and my readers deserve answers. The way I talk to hedge fund managers, politicians—it shocks some of the people I work with. I really don’t give a shit. I’ve seen too many emperors without clothes.
CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF is incredibly attractive to people. If you want people to talk to you, you have to make yourself seem cool. Especially with these finance guys, because they’re nerds. Wall Street guys are all nerds. And everyone’s insecure. Everyone. When I feel small, that’s when I smile wider and force myself to get out there. I act like people should be talking to me. It’s the only way to beat that sense of intimidation.

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.