Journalists land at Cisco, other brands as ‘corporate reporters’

Poynter reporting:
Former Businesweek reporter Steve Wildstrom has worked as a “corporate reporter” for Nvidia and Cisco, Giselle Abramovich writes. Those are people who “who work inside the company and produce media like blog posts, videos, webinars and more,” she writes.

The twist is this path isn’t exactly like public relations. Brands are realizing, to a degree, that if they truly want to be publishers they can’t just have people churning out corporate boilerplate. They’re loosening the reins a bit in a bid to attract actual reporters.

Wildstrom says he was worried how his colleagues would react, but “Cisco’s editorial policy is to forbid its writers from covering the company or its competitors,” Abramovich notes. Wildstrom, who covers tech, tells her he steers clear of pieces he can’t report honestly: “That’s how I have chosen to handle it. If I can’t be honest, I won’t write it,” he says. “Whatever organization you work for, shy of BBC, NPR or PBS, it has commercial motives,” former Ad Age editor and current content strategist Jonah Bloom tells Abramovich. “Ultimately, the consumer is the arbiter of whether your info is credible, useful and has integrity.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/207359/journalists-land-at-cisco-other-brands-as-corporate-reporters/