When a biz owner wants to review a story before publication

Brian Todd, a reporter for the Post Bulletin in Rochester, Minnesota, writes about how sources often ask to review a story, or a quote, before it’s published.

Todd writes, “Hard-working business reporter Jeff Kiger said the people who most often ask to ‘look things over first’ are business owners. Most, he said, have only dealt with the newspaper to place ads, and there they get to review ads. But a story is not an advertisement, and what you say is what we write.

“Like Kiger, I agree that average folks who don’t deal with the media can be cut a little slack. If they say something inflammatory we might give them half a chance to walk that back.

“But, and I agree with Kiger on this, politicians and CEOs of big companies get no slack because they ought to know better.”

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.