Ingrassia was the master of the art of impatience

Portrait of Reuters staffer Paul Ingrassia, in New York, July 7, 2011. REUTERS/Chip East (UNITED STATES)

Wall Street Journal reporter John D. Stoll writes about what Paul Ingrassia, the former Journal reporter and editor who died earlier this week, taught him about journalism./

Stoll writes, “For instance, more than once I was on an email chain that he was copied on. These conversations can continue on message after message, with multiple people weighing in on whether we should do the story, who should do the story, what the story line should be.

“The response from Mr. Ingrassia inevitably went like this: For the amount of words and time we’ve wasted talking about the story, we could have had it published by now.

“Gordon Crovitz, a former Wall Street Journal publisher, said if executives signaled support for an Ingrassia initiative, he would go in for the kill even as others were still thinking it over.

“‘He was a master of the presumptive close,’ Mr. Crovitz remembered. ‘He would say, ‘Are we going to announce this on Tuesday or Thursday?’ It forced more urgent discussion.'”

Read more here.

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.