Meet the Influencers: Darlene Darcy, Washington Business Journal

Darlene Darcy joined the Washington Business Journal (WBJ) in January 2008 to cover technology and government contracting. In this installment of the Sounding Board's Influencer Q&A, Darlene shares how she got her start in journalism, technology trends of interest, her approach to news reporting, including recommendations for pitching and press releases, and insight on the launch of the Journal's social networking community.

-Lisa Wells

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in journalism and media? What made you decide to go into journalism?
I grew up in Chicopee, Mass., and graduated from Boston College with a degree in economics. Before earning my Master’s degree in business journalism from Boston University, I worked in marketing and advertising sales for a media company and as a research analyst for an economic consulting firm. Both jobs offered interesting views of the business world and opportunities to do interesting types of writing. However, I wanted to focus more on writing and the ability to convey a broader, widely informed view of the business world rather than the perspective of a single corporation or client. Prior to joining the WBJ, I was published in the Cape Cod Times and the Worcester Business Journal.

What brought you to the WBJ and the technology and government contracting beats?
While finishing my last semester of graduate school at Boston University’s
Washington D.C. Journalism Center in Woodley Park, I worked as an intern at the WBJ and reported for the Cape Cod Times as a Washington correspondent on the Hill. A staff reporter position on the technology and government contracting beat opened before my internship ended, and I knew it would be the right opportunity to kick off my journalism career at a reputable business-centric publication. Moreover, if there is any beat at the WBJ that is particularly interesting because of the market/geographic location of the paper, it’s the technology and government contracting beat. The technology industry here is diverse and hugely successful. Government contracting is a business world unto its own, with interesting business models and fascinating strategic nuances. And it’s an industry upon which our country’s viability is reliant. Many mistakenly assume it’s a dry beat. On the contrary, it’s an extremely interesting business beat because of its importance to both the local and global economy.

What technology trends do you currently find most interesting?
The intense focus on cyber security and the convergence of telecommunications technologies via the Internet that is prompting telcos and cable companies to further morph into diversified "service providers." What’s happening in both of those technology sectors is driving critical innovation in the health and financial industries, as well as really cool and lifestyle changing advances for the consumer end-user.

What makes a good pitch? What do you look for when evaluating a technology, company, or industry professional to feature?
News, news, news! It has to be timely, affect change and is best if exclusive. If a company “did” something, it’s going to become dated information quickly, and chances are someone, maybe many, already know about it. If a company is “doing” something or “will do” something, the pitch should convey how that thing is different and how it will affect the company. A similar philosophy applies to selecting someone or some company to feature because we want to write about the role that people and companies are playing or played in news stories we are or have been following.

Do you have recommendations for press releases and making them newsworthy?
The most important part of a press release isn’t the background information or detail about how the company has had a bunch of success during the past six months, which has led to massive growth, for example. While the back story often is interesting, and can be central and critical to telling a good story, my job is to lead with the news and then ask, “So what?” What does that mean to the business today and tomorrow? What is changing or will change because of what has already happened? Will the company be hiring more staff, laying people off, opening new facilities, moving, making acquisitions, discontinuing a line of business, selling assets, signing contracts? What don’t people know about what is about to happen at the company? That’s the news and the best first sentence of a pitch. For instance, Company X is going to be leaving next month; Company X just bought assets from Company Y so they could enter a new vertical market to make up for declining revenue on product/service Z. Then comes the “Why.” Keep press releases short and try to avoid passing along marketing and technical words. Reporters can’t use them and are going to ask that things be explained in laymen’s terms. Anticipate that. Also, sending press releases out early, ahead of the news helps.

bizjournals recently tapped into the social networking universe with the launch of networking.bizjournals.com (beta). Can you tell us more about the initiative? While in the early stages of exploring the new media frontier, do you see bizjournals reporters blogging their beats in the future?
We’ve added the bizjournals Washington Community Network to our Web site where readers can join group pages and post comments, as well as “friend” reporters and other readers in the WBJ community. We’re creating group pages around various beats and sections such as “The Back Page” and “People and Community.” Sometime in the near future, I’ll be managing a technology and government contracting focused group page. I don’t think we can ignore that other reporters are blogging, but aside from posting stories and other content to the community group pages and letting readers drive conversation via comments, I haven’t heard that we’ll be blogging our beats in the near future.