How Michael Barbaro got interested in business journalism

Kara Swisher of Recode interviewed Michael Barbaro of the New York Times — who now hosts its podcast “The Daily” — on the Recode Decode podcast, and one of the topics they discussed was how he got into business journalism.

Here is an excerpt:

How did you get to the Times, from?

From the Washington Post. The first job I got out of college was at the Washington Post as a business reporter. I covered the local biotechnology industry in Maryland. You may remember some of the names of the companies that have since gone bust.

Yes, I do. I worked as a business reporter for the Washington Post so I know. Yes.

I actually knew that. Washington was booming in that area, the biotechnology and the tech industry was blossoming. The business section was flush with advertising, until it wasn’t. I started working there and I stumbled into the local retail beat. This was my big breakthrough, I was covering the two big grocery chains in Washington.

Giant Food?

Giant Food and Safeway. I chronicled them aggressively. Walmart was coming into all these communities, and my ticket out of Washington and probably the most important job I’ve ever done was covering Walmart.

Right.

What was going on, I won’t bore you too much with details, but as I was covering the local groceries chains, they were fighting Walmart. I got interested in Walmart.

Read more here.