It’s all about persistence

During the process of reporting what became a worldwide scoop for the Northern Colorado Business Report, editor and intrepid real estate report Tom Hacker was asked by a reluctant source, “Can’t you wait for the company’s announcement after the deal closes? Why is it so important to be first?” The short answer is, “That’s why it’s called news, and that’s what we do.” Oh, and don’t try to change the subject, OK?

But upon deeper reflection – yes, we do some of that, too – it’s all about bringing a spot of reality into the information management process. There’s a reason publicists and image consultants and spin doctors are so highly compensated; it’s heavy lifting to convince professional newsroom cynics that “extremely rapid oxidation” is not the same thing as an “explosion,” that a “new way forward” is not the same as Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamization,” or that those of us who work for a living want to waste two brain cells on a Trumped-up pseudo-celebrity feud. If they’re successful, their clients make money – or at least don’t lose as much as they should have.

In reporting on business, especially in a tightly knit region like Northern Colorado, we constantly try to find the balance between supporting local enterprises and letting readers know what’s going on that could affect them financially and why. Here’s how finding that balance worked in developing the story about the economic impact of Vestas Wind Systems potentially building its first North American factory in Windsor.

It started with a tip, as non-PR’d stories do. Someone mentioned to someone that they had heard something about a really, really big manufacturer wanting to move to the region and create a bunch of new jobs. It had something to do with renewable energy but not ethanol, according to the tipster, who then went silent.

By process of elimination, and some nimbly worded Google searches, our crack editorial team narrowed the field of possible suspects to GE or Vestas. A little more Internet digging revealed Vestas had publicly expressed interest in Colorado, even announcing a relocation to Pueblo, in the past. (Even old-schoolers use new tools.)

Armed with the working assumption that we were talking about a new wind turbine factory – since that’s Vestas’ business – Tom started calling anyone and everyone in a position to have heard any more details. There were no meetings in dark parking garages – most around here are very well lighted – but bits and pieces from various conversations eventually coalesced into an actual fact or two, enough to ask for confirmation directly from the company and the local players we now knew were involved in the deal.

Picking up the phone to ask a real live human being questions he or she likely doesn’t want to answer probably sounds like a complete non-starter as a career enhancement option. Especially if the call has to cross several time zones and is 98 percent guaranteed to be to someone who at the very least will be cranky to hear from you. But that’s what we do, and keep doing, until we get answers. Or at least that’s what we do if we have a story that we think is important to our readers.

Once Tom had the information in hand, then the balancing act began, because it doesn’t matter what we know, it matters what we print. Those discussions were all about questions like, “Do we have enough information to say that this is definitely happening?” and “If we wait two weeks for our next issue to get more confirmations, will another news organization scoop us?’ and “If we publish, will it put the kibosh on the deal?” (The answers were yes, yes and no.)

So, take a minute and search Google News and Blogs for Vestas and Colorado. Then wish Tom a happy birthday and send him your thoughts on how he started the conversation about Vestas coming to town, even through the Rocky gets credit in Danish.

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