Professor Recalls Journey Through TIME

By Jonathan Higuera
January 29, 2007 09:29 AM

During his 35 years as a correspondent for TIME magazine, Bill McWhirter covered important stories such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the travails of former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca and the invasion of Grenada.

He started there as a foreign correspondent and spent 25 years traversing the globe and covering overseas stories. When TIME recalled many of its veteran foreign staffers in 1988, he moved to the magazine's Chicago bureau, eventually becoming National Business Correspondent. His stories ranged from consumer fads to the U.S. automotive industry.

When he left his full-time job with TIME in 1998, he began a teaching career at Michigan State University's journalism department. But he didn't step into a cushy teaching job. He began slowly, first as a lecturer, then guest teacher. He's now Editor-in-Residence at MSU's Journalism School and director of the school's magazine program. Last year he was one of two faculty members to receive the university's highest undergraduate teaching award.

BusinessJournalism.org caught up with him during a Reynolds Business Journalism Professors Seminar at Arizona State University in January and asked his views on his career, the media industry, teaching, and the state of business coverage today.

Question: I understand you were first published as a 12-year-old boy. Tell us how you did that?
McWhirter: I was going to a Boy Scout Jamboree in Mount Vernon and wrote a letter to the editor of the Kansas City Star telling him I wanted to cover it for the paper. I came from a family in the printing business and grew up loving to read newspapers. So I started writing about the trip, particularly Scouts trading stamps.

Question: You attended Princeton University even though it didn't offer a journalism major. Tell us why.
McWhirter: I attended there because they had an independent newspaper and I knew TIME recruited from there. I also wrote a letter to Henry Luce and asked him about the best education for someone who wanted to work at TIME. He replied 'learn about the world and we'll teach you about journalism.'

Question: You started writing more business stories when you returned from your foreign assignment and chose to move to TIME's Chicago bureau. What prompted that?
McWhirter: They recalled a number of us and none of the correspondents knew about business and did not want to write about business. But we had a great section devoted to business. I saw it as a target of opportunity. I had written about the German car industry, euros and marks.

Question: Was it difficult to learn to write business stories?
McWhirter: If felt like a monk in a medieval library scratching my way to knowledge reading the Wall Street Journal everyday. But I also found out there are ways to write a business story without telling them it was a business story.

Question: Who were some of the more memorable business figures you covered?
McWhirter: Lee Iacocca. I loved him for his candor, outrageousness, boldness and his sense of fun. I covered him the way some sportswriters covered Muhammad Ali.

Question: If Iacocca was the forerunner to today's CEOs as celebrities coverage, what do think of today's coverage of business leaders?
McWhirter: The main lesson from the CEO as celebrity is the old testament rule: no matter the star quality you need more than their version of events. Some of these stars at the top turned out to be major crooks such as Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Ebbers and Jeffrey Skilling.

Question: What's your view on the state of business coverage today?
McWhirter: We have a few outlets that have gotten smarter and better at what they do. They no longer think about business as just for business people. But the quantity (of business coverage) still outruns our ability to be smart and knowledgeable about what we cover.

Question: What's different about business coverage today from when you were immersed in covering it?
McWhirter: This is a world where cash transcends borders. I don't think anyone envisioned this wealth would occur. Even the Pharaohs would be impressed.

Question: What advice do you give students who want to be great business writers?
McWhirter: You can only get so much by scrolling through official sources. You're only going to get so much from ambushing people instead of working three times as hard to earn their trust. You only get so far playing gotcha with a financial sheet. You can only get that kind of information by knowing the players and letting the players know you.

Question: Tell us about your approach to teaching.
McWhirter: My courses are much more free flowing. We're constantly inventing, changing things. Teaching a talented super student isn't teaching to me. It's teaching someone who really doesn't know how good they are or could be.

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