I’ve had an e-mail conversation the past few days with Carol Kleiman, the syndicated workplace columnist for the Chicago Tribune who recently retired. I posed a number of questions about her thoughts about workplace and labor reporting in business journalism. Here are some of her responses:

Q: How difficult was it initially to write about business issues for you?

A: If you mean employment issues, it wasnt hard at all. If you’re a good reporter and know how to ask questions and figure out whom to ask, it’s just another assignment. But as a columnist, I really cared about employment issues and employees.

Q: How did you learn about business and what the issues were in the workplace?

A: I read everything, I asked questions, I made trusted sourceds and lived the issues myself.

Q: Did you have any mentors, and how did they help you?

A: No. I was on my own. Some colleagues were helpful. But I for one always reached out to new hires or new people to the business staff and welcomed them and tried to mentor them. I also mentored a lot of people outsided of my own deparment and outside of the Tribune. A very rewarding experience–and a lot of wonderful friendships.

Q: How much of an audience was there initially for what you were writing about?

A:Women and minorities were always there but invisible. I brought them into the Tribune’s readership and coverage, much to the benefit of the Tribune.

I will post the entire Q&A with Kleiman on www.bizjournalismhistory.org later under the “History Q&A” section.

Recent Posts

Marfil among the WSJ layoffs in DC

Jude Marfil, newsroom operations manager for The Wall Street Journal in its Washington office, was…

55 mins ago

Greene departing Cointelegraph

Tristan Greene, deputy U.S. news editor at cryptocurrency news site CoinTelegraph, is leaving next month…

1 hour ago

Dynamo hires former Business Insider executive editor Harrington

Former Business Insider executive editor Rebecca Harrington has been hired by Dynamo to be its…

2 days ago

Bloomberg TV hires Kerubo as desk producer

Bloomberg Television has hired Brenda Kerubo as a desk producer in London. She will be covering Europe's…

2 days ago

Jittery CNBC staff reassured by new boss

In a meeting at CNBC headquarters Thursday afternoon, incoming boss Mark Lazarus presented a bullish…

2 days ago

Making business news accessible to a wider audience

Ritika Gupta, the BBC's North American business correspondent, was interviewed by Global Woman magazine about…

2 days ago