Building the Business Beat from the Ground Up
Veteran journalists share practical strategies for newsgathering and reporting in an era of industry contraction and eroding press credibility.
Program Date: Oct. 8, 2026
By Kevin Johnson
Updated Fri Oct 16, 2026
With the U.S. economy facing the most complex and fast-changing environment in recent history, the business beat has never been more vital in newsrooms tasked with distilling a constellation of forces for local communities.
Costly tariff policies, labor crises tied to immigration enforcement, and breaks in the global supply chain are testing both local businesses and journalists tasked with explaining the challenges entrepreneurs face.
Claire Savage, a Chicago-based business reporter at The Associated Press; Jacob Bunge, a former deputy Chicago bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal; and Lisa Schencker of the Chicago Tribune, who covers the business of healthcare, shared best practices with the National Press Foundation’s Local Business Reporting Fellowship.
Building a Source Network
"I like to make sure people are comfortable first," Savage said. "And I often also explain to them what off the record means in very clear, basic terms."
"What on background can mean, negotiating certain terms of speaking… I find that goes a long way in establishing that trust and the age-old trick of, ‘Can you recommend anyone else for me to speak with?’ And they often have a friend in another agency or someone who recently quit but knows someone and I’m like, ‘That’s great. Can I say that you recommended I speak with them?’ I feel like that more organic way of forming connections goes a long way…”
Identifying Reliable Sources
"I think the goal of my coverage is to be consumer facing, patient facing, right? How does this affect the consumer or the patient? I find that the best way for me to get information about what’s going on at these giant companies or at healthcare systems is organized labor is really helpful. If a hospital has a union, a nurse’s union or a (union) representing their nonclinical workers, those are always great sources. I try to keep up with those sources and reach out to them and I know they’re a lot less afraid to speak out publicly than just a random employee I may contact."
"I also really try to get patients’ perspective and consumers’ perspectives. If I’m writing about drug prices, I want to talk to the person who’s buying the drug about how this has affected them financially. And I’ll find those people out a lot of the time through patient advocacy groups. They want to get these people’s stories out there."
Preparing for the Big Interview
"You really want to have a command of your material," Bunge said. "I think you want to be sort of like a lawyer litigating a case where you kind of know what the answer is going to be or have a good idea of what they’re going to say and approach it like a chess game where if they’re going to deflect with some misdirected comments, how do you respond? What’s your evidence?"
"Another thing to keep in mind with a situation like that, if for example, you have an hour on the phone with this person to think about how it’s going to look from their perspective, if that makes sense. Perhaps you’ve got a lot of damning material on this company, but you don’t want to come off as though you..."