Detroit Free Press auto reporter Jamie LaReau spoke with Frank Witsil at the paper about her job.
Here is an excerpt:
FREE PRESS: Well, going back to GM, can you talk a little bit about what is the most challenging part of covering a big company like that and how you decide what to cover?
LAREAU: There’s a lot of collaboration with my editors when there’s news and we make decisions on what we think our readers are going to respond to. We write for more of a consumer audience. We don’t write for Wall Street. We don’t necessarily write for the same reader of a trade publication like Automotive News. Those are industry people. So we look at it from what would a car buyer and a consumer be interested in? What would an amateur investor be interested in if you own stock in General Motors? And we make decisions that way.
We also look at stories that are unique and enterprise and human interest. We like to explore people-oriented stories, some of the stories that I’ve done that have gotten the biggest responses from readers have been innovative people working at General Motors doing really interesting things that have an intriguing backstory. And it’s pretty much 24-seven job in some ways, because it’s a huge company and they have offices around the world. So, news could happen at it has happened at 11 o’clock on a Friday night and I’m writing a story. It’s just the nature of the beat.
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