Ex-WSJ reporter's tips for covering companies and industries

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Sarah McBride, a Wall Street Journal reporter for 13 years before leaving earlier this year with a buyout offer, spoke to students interested in business journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and provided the following reporting tips.

Tips on covering a company

1. Get to know board members. McBride pointed out that they have lots of information about companies at their disposal.

2. Ask random questions. You never know what people will say. McBride once got Sirus XM Radio CEO Mel Karmazin to say on the record that he wanted to take the company private.

3. If you chat with the CEO, let his staff know. Access to the CEO is like a “Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” says McBride, letting employees know it’s OK to talk to you.

4. Look for duopoly situations. Two companies that dominate an industry will “have all kinds of dirt on each other,” says McBride.

5. Watch out for canceled vacations. McBride said the PR guy for XM passed on a planned vacation shortly before the deal with Sirius was announced.

How to cover an industry

1. Think up things that could happen, and keep asking about them. If a CEO has made some mistakes, ask whether he might be fired, says McBride.

2. Look for tipping points. McBride broke the story that box office revenue surpassed DVD revenue for movie studios for the first time in a decade by noticing the change.

3. Company the industry to others. Look at the percentage of revenue that companies from the Internet for newspapers, TV stations and radio, says McBride. Newspapers get a lot, while radio gets little.

4. Schmooze with random people who might have an unexpected perspective. McBride talked to a Microsoft executive at a trade show who noted that the movie studios were selling the HD DVD rights to their productions in Europe while promoting only Blu-Ray technology in the States.