It’s easy to think of the business world as black and white – or black and red, as the case may be.
But reporter Michael Diamond shows us it’s so much more.
At its core, it’s about people. The people whose drive and ingenuity keep the economy going. The people who struggle to pay bills. The needs and wants of a society and the way people build a life or legacy around them. The families who have poured their lives into keeping a generations-old shop or restaurant running. The medical advances and facilities that literally keep people alive.
He has been telling these stories on the Shore for more than twenty years, and his understanding and insight into the engine that drives the region is essential to understanding our neighbors and community.
Tell us about your background. Where do you come from? How and why did you start reporting? How did you end up at the Asbury Park Press?
I grew up in Denver, Colorado, and read the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News every morning, mostly the sports and comics. After I was cut from my freshman baseball team in high school, I needed to find a new activity, so I started writing for the school newspaper. I eventually went to Dickinson College, a liberal arts school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and became editor of the school newspaper. I fell in love with journalism. I am curious about people’s stories and why the world works the way it does. I enjoy the challenge of staring at a blank screen and writing a story on deadline. And I’m super shy, so it gave me an excuse to talk to strangers. After graduating, I worked at a small newspaper outside of Pittsburgh and then worked at a newspaper in Southern California for five years. When I saw an opening for a business reporter in Asbury Park in 1999, I applied and was hired.Is there one story from your career that really stands out? What was it and why?
Gosh, I’ve been here 25 years and written thousands of stories. I’ve discussed the 1990s tech bubble, the Great Recession, Superstorm Sandy, and a pandemic. A few stand out.
A year after September 11, I went to Middletown, which lost dozens of residents in the terrorist attacks, to see how the community was recovering. I ran into Tom Redmond outside a church that day and he said, “I’m really glad to be alive. I just feel the sun here and my feet on the ground and my granddaughter’s hand.”
Twenty years later, I visited hospitals to interview workers on the front lines of the worst pandemic the world had seen in a century. They didn’t have enough equipment. They didn’t know how to treat the disease. They got sick themselves. That was a scary time.
What is one thing about yourself that would surprise people?
I don’t know anything about business. At least I hope this surprises people. If not, I’m in trouble. I studied American studies in college and have never taken an economics course in my life. At my first newspaper in the Pittsburgh suburbs, a few of us were trying out. We gathered in the lobby of a Days Inn and received our assignments. Mine was business. I thought, “Oh, this isn’t good.” As the editor walked out of the room, someone asked him how he got the assignments. “We pulled names out of a hat,” he said. What about covering things that appeal to you?
Business stories are no different than sports, news or articles. In essence, they are about people. And they can be very dramatic: small business owners risk everything to make their idea work; ordinary workers pursuing their own passions while trying to make ends meet. Getting to know and tell their stories gives me energy.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Meet APP.com business reporter Michael Diamond
