A monkey or a business reporter?

Olivia Barrow, a reporter for the Milwaukee Business Journal, writes on LinkedIn about how she tries to go beyond reporting stories that a monkey could do, such as rewriting news releases and earnings.

Here are two of her suggestions:

1. Know your value, and don’t get bogged down in anything that doesn’t provide value. I can write a thrilling summary of a press release like the best of them, but that’s not where my value as a business reporter comes, no matter how much context and insight I provide. If the organization wants the news out there enough that they’re willing to write a press release, then the news will get out. Eventually, the rote task of publishing news distributed in press releases will probably fall on a specialized computer, or at the very least an unpaid intern, and I’ll be out of a job. The problem is that I have a whole college degree in writing stories from press releases and public records. It feels like I’m providing value because it took a lot of work for me to get to the point where I’m qualified to do even those rote tasks. But, as in any industry that’s experiencing colossal shifts in technology, supply and demand, if I think my training inherently makes me valuable to my organization, I’ve got another think coming.
2. Know how you impact the bottom line. This runs counter to conventional wisdom for journalists, who’ve had it ingrained in them that the advertising department and the editorial department should operate completely independently. But that’s all changing in journalism, and in many other fields. If I don’t know exactly how my work impacts the company’s bottom line, how can I offer innovative ideas about growing the business, or becoming more efficient? Sometimes managers don’t take the time to make the connection obvious to their employees, which means employees need to speak up and ask more questions.

Read more here.