How Joe Weisenthal loosens up Bloomberg

Ricardo Bilton of Digiday interviewed Joe Weisenthal of Bloomberg, whose show “What’d You Miss?” debuted recently.

Here is an excerpt:

Business coverage, when done right, can be as compelling as sports.
The overlap between coverage of market movements and professional sports seems minimal. On the other hand, finance watchers obsess over the moves of people such as Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, making her a bit like the industry’s LeBron James. And then there are the movements in financial markets, all of which tell their own stories

“Talking about market movements is the equivalent of highlighting an amazing play in a game. “It’s not just the final scoreboard but also this thing that happened at 1 o’clock, right when the jobs data came out and all these markets went nuts.”

Reporters should ask dumb questions.
While reporters are in the business of asking questions, they’re loathe to sound stupid while doing so. But there’s an argument to be made that reporters, especially those on TV, should often err on the side of simplicity when it comes to interviews.

“Part of the job is to ask the questions that the people at home have,” Weisenthal said. “It’s really important to keep that in mind and not be embarrassed or feel that you’re so sophisticated that you can’t ask the really simple questions.”

Listen to the podcast here.