Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fortune's McLean: Biz stories are human dramas

Fortune magazine’s Bethany McLean, widely credited with writing the story back in 2001 that led investors and other journalists to begin to question Enron and its accounting, spoke about the experience at the University of Notre Dame Tuesday.

The South Bend Tribune’s YaVonda Smalls wrote, “Enron’s story touches further on the financial, human and philosophical realms of our everyday lives, McLean said. It raises questions about people and their motivations.

“‘It’s more than a business story,’ McLean said. ‘At their best, (business stories) are always human dramas.’

“Unfortunately, McLean said, what happened at Enron could easily happen again in corporate America.

“‘To say that it’s different this time and that we’ve learned our lesson goes against the grain of history,’ she said.

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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.