With the pressure of updating a daily news blog in addition to his regular column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Joseph N. DiStefano says that the biggest change over the last few years in the newspaper offices at 400 N. Broad is acceleration.
“It’s a lot easier to get a hold of key documents and get answers to a lot of basic questions online,” says DiStefano, who pens the Inky’s PhillyDeals column.
“But reporting is reporting. News is information that someone else wants to suppress.”
DiStefano has the gruff exterior one might expect of a veteran newspaper columnist who writes hard news about regional business.
“I used to tell CEOs that if you’re indicted, I will cheerfully write that story on page one. Not to celebrate indictment, but because we have the space there,” he says. “It’s an adversarial role.”
Since 2007, DiStefano’s distinct attitude has been on display in that column, which covers a broad range of business topics, including development and real estate, finance and Philadelphia’s technology community.
DiStefano, who grew up on the Main Line, has been in the reporting business since 1988, when he was looking for a steady line of work after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and U.S. history.
He’s gone on to report finance at Bloomberg and in 2005, published Comcasted, about Comcast’s cable strategy, all while he and his wife were raising six kids.
After the jump, we ask to borrow DiStefano’s crib notes for business and technology reporting in Philadelphia.
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