Business Journalist of the Year
After A Decade On The Job, WSJ's Steiger Bears Fresh Burdens
By Dean Rotbart
Imagine, for a moment, what it must be like to have the fears, pain and uncertainty of global terrorism rupture your life not once, but twice in the same year.
Imagine being Paul E. Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, whose principle newsroom was shattered in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, only to be rocked again just four months later by the terrorist kidnapping - and perhaps even execution - of Daniel Pearl, one of his veteran staff members.
In the first instance, Paul was haunted by the cataclysmic sights and sounds erupting just outside his own offices.
"The one thing that does come back, that I will never forget and I wish I could get out of my mind, is looking out the window of my building and seeing, you know, something falling from the tower and then realizing that it was a human being....
"And then there were more and more and more of them," Paul recalled in a televised interview on the Charlie Rose show a month after the attacks. "I mean I saw two people holding hands. And to me, that they would be so terrified that they would jump, just really got into me."
Flash forward. This time the haunting vision is of young, gentle Danny Pearl, his hands shackled, head bowed as a faceless terrorist points the evil metallic barrel of death just inches from his head. One can only wonder how many turbulent nights Paul has passed with that image ricocheting through his thoughts.
Having worked with and for Paul, I can personally attest that the loss of innocent lives touches him. As for his employees, he cares passionately about them and his private agony over Danny's circumstances in undoubtedly both genuine and profound.
But Paul is unlikely, even in his most private moments, to be reflecting upon his own circumstances.
These are times when Paul Steiger must be steady and strong. It is a prerequisite when you take on the responsibility of running one of the world's largest and most respected news organizations. Paul has been managing editor of the Journal since June 1991, a tenure stretching longer than any other ME in the paper's history.
Yet owing to Osama bin Laden and his followers, Paul's term is less likely to be remembered by posterity for his superb editorial guidance before September 11th as it is for his calm, effective management of the unprecedented crises that arose in the aftermath of that infamous day.
Paul E. Steiger is the most influential business journalist in America and has been ever since TJFR Business News Reporter, my newsletter, began keeping track of such measurements back in 1996. Given the global reach and clout of the Journal - including its online edition and its partnership with CNBC - the top ranking falls virtually by default each year to whoever is occupying the managing editor's office at the daily business newspaper.
Other news organizations, notably The New York Times, The Financial Times, Bloomberg and Fortune have deprived the Journal of its one-time monopoly as THE purveyor of business news excellence. On any given day, the Journal is likely to be bested on one or more of the day's top business news stories.
Yet winning a periodic footrace with the Journal doesn't add up to being best or fastest overall. In the marathon that is business news week in and week out, the Journal remains the across-the-board, undisputed champion.
So, perhaps, one might think, Mr. Steiger's job is really not that tough, nor does he personally contribute much to his own top ranking.
Well, think again.
Because of its performance and stature, the Journal is the target of more competitive challenges than any other single business news organizations. Not only do other news competitors set their sights daily on scooping the Journal, they frequently go shopping among the Journal's proven editorial staff for new journalistic acquisitions of their own.
Indeed, one of Mr. Steiger's greatest accomplishments in recent years has been to keep his prized reporters and editors motivated in such a way that they willingly turn down offers from other news outlets to change affiliations for more money and a higher spot on the newsroom organizational chart.
Had the clock stopped ticking on 2001 on September 10th of last year, Mr. Steiger would still have been a frontrunner for the honor of Business Journalist of the Year. Up until then, his paper's coverage of the most important story of the year -- the U.S. and global economic downturn -- was timely, insightful and relevant.
Other leading candidates for the 2002 TJFR Business Journalist of the Year honor included Lou Dobbs, whose return to CNN revitalized its sagging ratings and moral; Glenn Kramon, who oversees the increasingly impressive business news coverage in The New York Times and Neil Cavuto who helped build the Fox News Network into a cable powerhouse.
All four men deserve to be most proud of their achievements in 2001.
In the final lap of the year, however, Paul Steiger ran unchallenged.
However excellent the coverage of the attacks and their aftermaths were in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post and on cable television; none of those news organizations faced the added obstacle of having to put out their daily dispatches from scattered, makeshift headquarters. And few of them had collectively inhaled as much smoke, ash and horror as had the firsthand witnesses on the staff of The Wall Street Journal.
While the primary focus of the world was riveted to the events surrounding the terror attacks and the U.S. response, another blockbuster story was unfolding in Houston, Texas: the implosion of energy giant Enron.
In the waning months and weeks of 2001, the Journal's coverage of the business and accounting debacle that marked the undoing of Enron was top caliber.
The Journal, with little argument, was the first major U.S. news organization to grasp the real scope and potential problems lurking behind Enron's opaque financial reports and executive obfuscations. As we are now witnessing, the fallout from the Enron story is likely to be the business equivalent of a full blown terrorist attack.
The decision to name Paul Steiger the Business Journalist of the Year was finalized by me and my staff in mid-December 2001, before Danny Pearl was abducted and Paul found himself once again in the awkward and highly stressful position of both being and covering a major global news story.
In selecting Paul, he becomes the first journalist to receive the honor twice. Paul was also named our Business Journalist of the Year in 1996, the year we inaugurated the award.
When I notified Paul in late December of his selection, he reflected on his tenure at the paper's helm.
"The job has changed dramatically in the time that I've been in it," Paul said.
Even after more than a decade on the job, Paul admitted that the unprecedented events of late 2001 sometimes left him unsure of how to proceed.
"There were days in the morning where I wasn't sure what the right thing to do was," he acknowledged. "There were powerful arguments in both directions."
Funny, how the world turns. Since Danny Pearl was kidnapped on January 23, I wouldn't be surprised if Paul privately pines for the relative certainties of late 2001.
No prize or recognition, be it for the paper or for him individually, is likely to ever compare to the gratitude Paul will feel if Danny is returned, alive and unharmed, to his family, friends and colleagues.
The complete Business Journalist of the Year profile of Paul E. Steiger, as well as the 2002 ranking of the 100 Most Influential Business Journalists in America will be published later this month in TJFR Business News Reporter. The annual "Top 100" magazine reaches more than 5,000 influential business journalists as well as most leading public relations and communications executives.
February 4, 2002
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