Fortune’s Serwer: Good business journalism can be positive

Public relations professionals and others shouldn’t classify stories about companies as “good” or “bad,” said Fortune magazine managing editor Andy Serwer.

Good business journalism can relate positive stories, but the best stories are stories that are unusual and different, he added.

“If we told only good stories, that would mean that the world is inherently bad,” said Serwer in a talk Wednesday at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He said that stories that are negative show that the world is inherently good because they stand out more.

His talk was also sponsored by the UNC Department of Public Policy. Serwer was interviewed by three UNC-CH students.

Serwer said that there are two biases with writing positive stories about companies. The first is that if you write a positive story about a company that later fails, the other business news media will remind you of your mistake in their coverage. The second is that positive stories don’t win business journalism awards.

“Writing positive stories about business is actually harder,” said Serwer.

Serwer said he deals with phone calls, emails and meetings every day from people upset with Fortune’s coverage. He noted that IBM pulled its advertising from the magazine and wouldn’t allow anyone from the company to talk to the magazine’s writers after it mentioned then-CEO Lou Gerstner’s bad etiquette on the golf course in a story.

He said other companies have pulled their advertising from all of Time Inc.’s magazines after what they perceived to be negative coverage in Fortune.

“You can’t compromise” your coverage,” said Serwer. “You can’t be sleazy, mean or vindictive. You have to tell the story, and you have to be honest.”

Serwer said he uses a simple strategy when companies complain to his reporters about their coverage in the magazine.

“I tell all my reporters, ‘Tell them Andy Serwer made me do it, he’s crazy,'” said Serwer. “Use psychological warfare on them.”

Serwer was also bullish on the future of magazines, noting that the recent Fortune 500 issue was the largest for the magazine in the past nine years. He also noted that the magazine’s conference business “is exploding.”