Five Questions With...Patrick Scott

By Kanupriya Vashisht

Patrick Scott, business editor of The Charolette Observer,talks to associate editor Kanupriya Vashisht about the changes to his paper's business section after changing hands with McClatchy; business stories that click with the Charlotte readers; and what he expects from reporters new to the business beat.

Directly related to the McClatchy deal, we've been sharing content with a former competitor, the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. McClatchy now has several dailies in the Carolinas and is looking to them to make the best use of resources for readers. That's meant using some of Raleigh's trend or statewide stories in our section, as well as occasionally coordinating coverage such as a year-ahead look at business sectors in North Carolina.

Unrelated to the deal, we shrunk our stock agate and switched to the AP's Money & Markets format. We now do a Readers' Choice listing of stocks and an abbreviated mutual funds report. The change added a half-page for news content.

2How big is your current staff?

We have nine reporters (two vacancies) and three editors. (I'm now looking for an experienced banking and finance reporter. Send a note to me if you're interested.) I focus our team on three things: watchdog journalism, telling stories out in the business world, and posing provocative questions to the economy and our region. We emphasize enterprise work and investigations, and we have reporters on the key drivers in the economy including development, banking and finance, and sports business.

3What are some unique traits of the Charlotte area business scene?

This is the epicenter of consumer banking, the heart of NASCAR and the buckle of the Bible belt. When our work captures all of those traits, as we did with a series on the creation of a start-up bank last year, that's golden. More practically, housing and development stories are especially important in this still fast-growing area, so our other recent series have focused on mortgage lending, foreclosures and homebuilders. Earlier series charted the collapse of the textile industry and the rise of offshore outsourcing.

4How is online coverage affecting your section? 

We've had success in blogs on hot topics, including ones by development columnist
Doug Smith, retail reporter Nichole Bell and personal finance writer Amy
Baldwin. We've driven tens of thousands of readers to our site with a map showing every foreclosed home in Mecklenburg County. Mining and mapping data that relates directly to readers' lives is key. We have also recently trained and equipped a business reporter to shoot video with cool stories. Reporters file first to the Web, and we send out a daily business email, but we have not dedicated a full-time business reporter to online.

5What do you expect of reporters newly entering the field of business coverage?

We're looking for reporters who think critically, work aggressively, and tell great stories. Our primary mission is to serve, protect and advance the public welfare, and there are plenty of opportunities to do that in business. Reporters should be experts on mining the intersections of government and business, of businesses and the consumer, for the data that expose questionable practices, law breaking and public fleecing.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism