Five Questions with Greg Ip

September 12, 2008
By Amy Eagleburger

For Greg Ip, economics has always been a part of his life. His mother was an economist and as soon as he left college, Ip began to carve out his own career as a business journalist. For more than a decade, Ip was an economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal where he penned the Real Time Economics blog. Now he's moved onto The Economist, where he's jumped into an economic editor role.

1. How did you get your start in economic journalism?

I liked to write from the time I was child, and was editor of my high school newspaper. I was also interested in economics because my mother was an economist (she is now retired) and I thought it was a useful backup in case I couldn't find a career in journalism. So, I pursued a combined degree in journalism and economics at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. After I graduated, I started out on the metro desk of the Vancouver Sun then moved to the business section, and discovered there was relatively less competition for jobs covering finance nd business, and I liked the subject. So I stuck with it and honed my expertise.

2. You are known as the journalist with the inside track to the minds at the Federal Reserve. How did you go about developing such close source relationships?

Covering the Fed is much like covering any institution - Congress, a major company, city council, etc. The key to developing sources is to cover the institution thoroughly and for a long time, and to show in your reporting that you care about the subject. You strive to be fair and accurate and you understand the issues. Over the years people at the Fed realized that I tried to be diligent, that I understood what they did even if I didn't always agree with it, and they found that talking to me helped them articulate their own policies and views. Moreover, since people they care about on Wall Street read my coverage in The Wall Street Journal (and now The Economist), it is in their interest to have their point of view reflected in what I wrote. So there the relationship is mutually advantageous.

3. You pioneered the Real Time Economics blog – how did having a blog improve or alter your coverage of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy?

The bar is low to write a blog item so I could often write a piece on the blog about a bit of Fed or economic minutiae that would not have risen to the level an article in the newspaper but still appealed to the inside-baseball crowd. This helped entrench The Wall Street Journal as a key source of news about the Fed. It also turned out to be a great vehicle for material that didn't fit the normal definition of news. Two examples: on the day of a major piece of economic news, the blog would run a roundup of excerpts from broker notes called "Economists react." Another example: we would read speeches by Fed policy makers then post the key paragraphs about the economic outlook and monetary policy under the heading "Fedspeak highlights." Both features are now popular fixtures that helped make it a part of economy watchers' daily diet of news and commentary. The downside of the blog, I came to realize, is that good value-added pieces are time consuming and it was difficult to juggle the blog and the demands of the daily newspaper. I am trying to manage the same competing needs at The Economist which also has an excellent blog called "Free Exchange."

4. What economic issue would you like to see covered more? What issue do you feel like has not been covered well?

Economic news is so plentiful and well done today I'm hard pressed to name an issue that is undercovered. I do think coverage of the economy often lacks necessary perspective. For example, we routinely report the number of jobs created or lost each month but almost never express the number as a percentage, making it impossible for the average reader to put the news in the context of the overall job market. Another example: we frequently hear the current financial crisis is the worst since the Great Depression yet on many measures the economy so far has performed better than even during the mildest recession so far on record, and that perspective is missing from a lot of coverage. One thing I advise anyone considering reporting on economics is to be numerate: it is more important to understand numbers than to understand economics (that will come).

5. You've had a great career at The Wall Street Journal, what made you decide to move to The Economist?

My 11 years at the Journal were wonderful and satisfying, but the opening from The Economist came along at a stage in my life when I needed a change. It has given me the opportunity to write about a much wider breadth of subjects and to use what I had learned from my reporting and analysis to express a point of view. The Economist is also intensely read and followed by the people whose opinions I most respect, in business, finance and policy-making. Finally, it is prospering and growing at a time when most competing publications are shrinking or just treading water. I think that's in part due to its global perspective and global reach at a time when everyone, in the United States and elsewhere, feels their lives are, more than ever, influenced by events beyond their borders.