The ulterior motives in covering a company

Dan Beyers, the editor in chief of Capital Business, writes about the motives of people who are being covered by business journalists.

Beyers writes, “Everyone seemed to have an ulterior motive, one few made obvious when they reeled me in.

“I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had seen this movie before as a business reporter. You can sometimes feel a big story brewing when a once publicity-shy company starts churning out press releases with almost weekly regularity.

“Or when a big shot abruptly makes himself or herself available after years of stonewalling interview requests.

“This shower of attention can be flattering, until you figure out the company in question is in trouble, or about to be sold or the CEO is fighting for survival.

“It used to be enough to make me cynical. Now, I understand it to be just part of the process. Could we see the clues to Pepco’s decision last week to be acquired, or Orbital Sciences’s decision to pair up with ATK? Perhaps. But that’s why I like what we do. We report, and then wait for the rest of the story to materialize.”

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