What Jim Michaels taught Forbes journalists

Paul Brown, a former Forbes writer, writes about what he learned while working for the magazine’s famoous managing editor.

Brown writes, “This is going to be a blog post that tells you: You need to make your communications even shorter; your images more vivid and you darn well better have a point of view.

“These are lessons I learned (the hard way) from James Walker Michaels who died six years ago this month.

“Like a quarter (it seems, anyway) of the successful business writers in the universe, I owe a huge debt to Jim Michaels , the long-time editor of Forbes. It really isn’t hyperbolic to say that Michaels invented business journalism. The idea of always being skeptical of what you heard; the need for constantly providing context and giving the reader a well-reasoned conclusion at the end of every article, were all things Michaels demanded.

“I was shocked and a bit annoyed, I will admit.

“I went to Michaels and said, ‘Jim, how can you expect me to write about the world’s largest company in 130 lines?’

“‘If you can’t,’ he replied, ‘you don’t know what the story is.'”

Read more here.