How Reuters reporter Dastin scored his Amazon exclusive

Jeffrey Dastin

Reuters tech reporter Jeffrey Dastin talked about how he obtained his exclusive report that Amazon.com Inc. had rolled out machines to automate a job held by thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders.

Here is an excerpt:

Q: How did you score this exclusive?
A: Good stories are often unexpected. I was asking a source detailed questions about Amazon’s interest in robotic hands for grasping customer orders, when the person stopped me and said, ‘That’s not the real story here.’ I asked what was. The source explained that the technology I had focused my attention on was too experimental for Amazon to roll out widely, unlike, say, box-packing machines. That gave me a news tip to pursue.
Q: What types of reporting were involved?
A: I looked for anyone who could elaborate on the news tip. I went to events where I could introduce myself to sources. Lots of digging and luck eventually led me to the right people. I then had to earn their trust over time to ensure Reuters got the full, factual story.
Q: What was the hardest part of the reporting?
A: Learning how many roles the machines would replace was not an easy number to uncover.

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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.