This document discusses the importance of using compelling personality profiles to enhance business reporting. It argues that businesses are fundamentally about the people who start them, run them, and are affected by them. Effective profiles focus on defining moments, scenes, dialogue, and revealing details that illustrate a subject's character, values, and relationships rather than just biographical facts. The document provides examples of different types of profiles and emphasizes sourcing from those who know the subject personally. It concludes by assigning homework to identify potential profile subjects from a reporter's beat.

1. Perfecting
Personality Profiles
Creating compelling business coverage through
compelling characters
By Jacqui Banaszynski

2. Memorable
characters
What makes them so?

8. People are memorable
due to character
Deeds or actions
Signature traits
Words
Defining moments
… So, too, with businesses

9. Poll Question #1
What percentage of your business-beat
stories are profiles or focus primarily on
a central character?

10. Why profiles?
•
•
•
Businesses are PEOPLE
Started by, run by, made
successful by, sometimes
ruined by PEOPLE
They affect PEOPLE
•
•
•
•
Provide or end jobs
Create products we consume
Provide services we use
Drive the economy we all are
part of
Photo by Flickr user Kurman Communications Inc.

11. Why profiles?
•
At heart, any business is just a
compilation of the characters
•
•
•
Who run it
Who make it run
Who are affected by it
Businesses are about
PASSION and PURPOSE.
Employees at the opening of an Apple Store.
Photo by Flickr user macinate.
And those come from PEOPLE.

12. Poll Question #2
What type of person do you or your
editors usually select as profile subjects?

13. Whom to profile?
Obvious subjects:
•
•
Businesspeople or
businesses in the
news
Or in the bull's-eye of
a controversy
Photo by Flickr user Eran Sandler

14. General
Motors
CEO Mary
Barra
1st WOMAN TO
HEAD A MAJOR
AUTO COMPANY
Will her character
change the
culture, character
or operation of the
company?

15. Jeff Bezos
AMAZON CEO BUYS
WASHINGON POST
Visionary remaker of
retail takes on
revered traditional
institution
Will he stabilize,
transform, save,
undermine or
revolutionize an
industry in trouble?

16. Bernie Madoff

17. Slam-dunk profile
subjects
•
•
•
•
Firsts or barrier busters
Heroes or goats
Winners or losers
True newsmakers
BUT… you don’t have to wait for news
to bring fascinating characters to
your coverage.
Photo by Flickr user Jerry Bowley

18. Search your community
or beat for:
• People facing a dramatic
challenge or going through a
compelling transformation
• Turn-around artists
• Futurists, visionaries and
risk-takers
• Entrepreneurs and inventors
• Change agents
Photo by Flickr user Martin Playing With Pixels
and Words

19. Pope Francis
Rocks the
Vatican with
changes
Captivates
journalists
and the
public

20. Martha Stewart
Look for survivors
•
•
•
•
Characters who defy
the odds
Whom we love to hate
Whom we admire or
follow
Who teach us
something as leaders,
consumers, human
beings

21. Profile potential is everywhere
• The passionate
craftsperson
•
•
The expert who can
explain how things
work or why they
matter
The longtime loyal
employee who becomes
the embodiment of a
company
Photo by Flickr user Silvia Benedet
• The individual who
represents a broader trend
or illustrates a bigger issue

22. When the
story becomes
the business
Which becomes
an ongoing story
as people who buy
the product buy
into the story
(glassybaby)

23. Or just a great story…
The business is really the story
behind the business
The product and business take on
the CHARACTER of the founder

24. Community
characters
The local shop owner
or repairman or
salesperson or butcher,
baker, undertaker we
all know … but don’t
really know
(Bob at Dawson’s Shoe
Repair in Columbia,
Mo.)

25. Poll Question #3
What are the two most important
elements of a good personality profile?

26. Profiles
are not…
• Resumes
• Chronological life
biographies
• Lists of
employment or
accomplishments
• Q&A interviews
• (Use bio boxes)

27. Effective profiles are character revealed
through…
DEFINING MOMENTS that demonstrate character,
value, motivation, style
SCENES that show people in place, time, culture
and situation; put people in context
Relevant and REVELATORY DETAIL that shows
not just what someone does but who someone is
DIALOGUE and DYNAMICS that illustrate
relationships and interactions

28. Memorable
TRAITS,
DEEDS,
WORDS

29. PROFILE TYPES
• Not one-size fits all
• Must match publication, purpose, audience
interest and newsworthiness
• Adjust to tone of subject or character, and to
your own time, resources, style or strengths

30. 1. Whole Earth
• Cradle-to-current
• Obituaries
• Major figures or news
(Don’t overuse. Subject, space,
interest, access often doesn’t
warrant or require the whole
life story.)

31. Janet Yellen
New Chair
of the Federal Reserve
•
Person known in small
circles bursts into
national awareness or
prominence
•
Focus on primary
aspects of job or role,
but fill in the whole-life
background
•
Give the public context

32. But you can also profile in a
...Paragraph
Photo by Flickr user Windell Oskay
• Character captured in a
phrase or paragraph
• Puts personality to names
and titles
• Selective, relevant detail,
description or dialogue
• Metaphor helps (if it
speaks to understood or
shared culture)

33. "He was Dobie Gillis turned
crusty Army scout..."
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_24980304/pioneer-press-senior-editor-mike-bulger-dies-at
“He wore all the
hats, knew
where all the
bodies are
buried, held the
flashlight, led the
way, saved our
a--es so many
times, bemused
by us but never
critical.”

34. 2. Newsmaker/Niche
•
Focus on key aspect
connected to news of the
moment or situation being
explored.
•
Include only background
information relevant to that
news, and then with tight
selection and compression.
Photo by Flickr user Christopher Woo

35. 3. Micro
• Represents or reveals a
macro issue or situation
• Uses one to tell the story of
many
• Micro subject must be
chosen carefully to be a fair
stand-in
• If one character doesn’t
represent issue fully or
fairly, zoom in on three or
four
Photo by Flickr user Evan Leeson
Photo by Flickr user Dave_S

36. 4. Interview
• Often necessary for
celebrity or limitedaccess profiles
• “My lunch with …”
• Done well, puts readers
in the room
• Relies on effective
dialogue and description
• Interview questions
essential
Photo by Flickr user Craig Howell
Spice Girl
Melanie Brown,
spokeswoman
for Jenny Craig
Photo by Flickr user Eva Rinaldi

37. Melinda
Gates
Careful
Controlled
Guarded
Seldom accessible
Always on message
But… how
interesting if…

38. 5. Negative space
• Lack of access or
cooperation
• Obituaries
• Control freaks
• Geographically challenged
• Subjects buffered by
publicists, lawyers,
policies
• Relies on records,
multiple other voices
and/or observation
Photo by Flickr user Beverly & Pack

40. “INTO THE
WILD”
Jon Krakauer
never met
Chris
McCandless,
but brought
him to life
through the
stories of
those who
had.

41. “Roger and Me”
Michael Moore’s quest
to interview GM CEO
Roger Smith.
Interview never
happens, but character
of place, culture and
company is explored.

42. Tomorrow
The HOW of Profiles
•
•
•
•
Access and sourcing of profiles
Best practices of reporting for profiles
Effective writing structures for profiles
Alternative profile approaches and
structures

43. Homework
Make two lists:
1. List the 5 most important and influential people on your beat. If you don’t cover
a specific beat, then just list the most important or influential people in your
community.
2. Then list the 5 most interesting people you’ve ever met on your beat or in your
community. Don’t limit yourself to people who fit the usual definition of
“newsworthiness.”
Now identify the people who would make a great profile.
(Hint: If someone is on both lists, they rise to the top.)
Choose one or two, and answer these questions: (1) Why would you want to
profile them? (2) What would you most want to find out about them?
Please email your answers to:
Cassandra.Nicholson@businessjournalism.org
by 8 ET tonight, Feb. 5.

44. Questions?
banaszynskij@missouri.edu
Twitter: @jacquib
Slides, video, handouts,
homework at:
http://bit.ly/profiles2014
Photo by Flickr user Xurble