Today's journalist: Be an expert, dig deep, and stay on top of the information flow

Informative intervirew on CJR with Jesse Eisinger and Jesse's financial coverage leading up to the Wall Street meltdown.

In an era when readers are confronted with a fire hose of information, and with their choices increasing, when media is fragmented -- the competitive advantage for the individual journalist is to become an expert in his or her field.

Some key points from the interview on how Jesse does it:

The question of expertise is a very interesting one. Jon really knows how to get into the numbers and I admire him for that. I know a lot less about accounting than he does. It matters, but it also matters to get sourced up with people who understand what’s really going on and to have them walk you through things.

I would say my expertise is not in delving into documents that no one has read and finding the one incriminating footnote that explains everything. What I am good at is finding the skeptics and trying to understand their arguments and whether they make sense or not, then going to the other side and really trying to understand their point of view as well, and trying to make a decision about it—having some instincts.
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TA: How do you figure out who to talk to?

JE: This is the key question for journalists: sourcing. Source development, constantly expanding and culling your Rolodex to get to the people who are the most thoughtful, who will spend the time for you.

One of the things you do when you talk to these people is you honor them by being serious minded about the task. Seriously trying to understand it, so you’re not just calling them for a quote, you’re not just calling them for one conversation but you want to develop a relationship with them over time. And you want to devote yourself to understanding what the issue at hand is, whether it’s the credit-default swap market or a company’s balance sheet.

How you find these people is they’re talking to people in the market too, and they’re talking to ex-employees. You try to find the skeptical longs, you ask them who they’re talking to; constantly ask people you’re talking to who they’re talking to. I think we all know that ex-employees and suppliers and competitors and short sellers can be great sources—and they all have to be treated with enormous skepticism.

That’s why when you talk to these people you want them to show you documents, demonstrate it in the numbers, tell you anecdotes so that other people who were there can verify these things.

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TA: Outside of Portfolio, who do you read? Who’s doing the best journalism?

JE: I’m reading Jon Weil, I think he’s great. I’m reading tons of blogs. I think Krugman was on top of this from early on. And I think Steve Labaton’s byline is something I gravitate to in the Times. Carrick Mollenkamp has been a great reporter at the Journal. I hate to have these lists because I always drop people who are really great. I think Bloomberg has done an excellent job.

TA: What blogs do you read?

JE: The best financial blogs out there are experts and they’re explaining a lot of things. There’s some traders that explain the workings of financial markets in ways that journalists don’t and then there are economists that explain the economy and there are professionals like Calculated Risk.

Felix Salmon, our blogger at Portfolio, I think he’s great. I don’t always agree with him, but I think he’s incredibly smart and thoughtful and provocative about the financial world.

This new blogger from Australia, John Hempton at Bronte Capital, is really good. I’m just amazed at the plethora of blogs and you even see a lot of news breaking at blogs, too, like Dealbreaker and Clusterstock are getting all these documents and hedge-fund letters. That stuff I pour through. I think the blogosphere has really emerged just in the time i’ve been at Portfolio.
Those guys were professionals in the mortgage market.

It's worth noting how Jesse seeks out and regularly reads the best bloggers related to his area of coverage. This helps him stay current and provides him with varying points of view, which undoubtedly helps make him smarter.