For this edition of PAN Press Pass, our reporter Q&A series, we sat down with Inc.’s Jennifer Conrad, a senior writer covering American entrepreneurship and fast-growing companies, as well as the trends they need to know about. Jennifer discusses how she looks for her next story, what makes a valuable source, and how AI is impacting the industry.
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Q: What drew you to your beat, and what keeps you interested?
I like to interview entrepreneurs and understand their businesses and who they are—their backstories. Specifically, when looking at tariffs and small businesses, it’s been a hard but really dynamic eight months. For me, having an economics degree and background in international relations—which I couldn’t have anticipated using ever again—helps to tell these stories.
I’ve enjoyed getting a sense of what’s on the ground and how entrepreneurs are adapting their businesses to tariffs and recent policies.
Q: Where do you look for your next story?
It varies. Sometimes the reporters and editors at Inc. look at the news or certain newsletters to figure out if there’s an angle to a major news story that hasn’t been covered or a question that business owners might have that hasn’t been addressed. Sometimes I turn to social media or LinkedIn, especially for companies that are trending or doing something interesting. Some of it does come through PR pitches, but it’s really a combination. A lot of times, someone in the office will start hearing about a particular company a fair amount, and then we’ll start discussing if that company is interesting, and if they are, who would cover it, why they’d cover it, and how.
Q: How much collaboration is there across teams at Inc?
We’re a pretty small staff, so we do tend to talk to each other a lot. We have a morning news meeting every day where we go over what people are writing, and what other things we should be tracking. We meet about once a week to talk about ideas and longer-term stories.
Q: What are some of your PR pet peeves?
Unless it’s super urgent, like there’s a major error in a story or there’s a last-minute piece of information I need before we can publish, there’s really no reason to call.
It can be really distracting and disruptive. It’s one thing if it’s someone I’m already working with on a story says “Hey, can we talk through this?” or “Hey, the CEO is here. He has five minutes.” If it’s just a pitch and people are texting or calling at all hours—that’s really annoying. I think that almost every reporter would say that. Some people will actually block those contacts. I don’t do that, but I know a lot of reporters block PR people.
Another thing is that sometimes a story won’t work because either the source isn’t willing to be forthcoming enough or provide financial information, or there just isn’t enough of a narrative arc.
Other times, a pitch may fall outside our coverage area. We pretty much only cover American companies, and it can be frustrating when you explain to someone why a story isn’t going to work, and they continue to pitch it anyway or argue about it. Most good PR people don’t do that, but sometimes people are just like “Well I really think it could work because of XYZ.” It’s just not worth anyone’s time.
Q: What makes a strong source to you?
It’s really important that business owners are willing to talk about their revenue, growth, and any kind of metrics that will help us understand the size of the company. Inc. is a business publication, and our readers are business owners that want to understand how other businesses are operating on a very technical, financial level. We can negotiate until everyone is comfortable with what we’re sharing, but we really need some transparency around finances. We’re generally looking for a company that is profitable or on a path to profitability. I’m typically looking for a company where there is a product in the market—rather than, say, a startup that has an idea and is fundraising.
Another element that makes a good story is when founders are willing to be honest about the challenges they’ve faced. Ideally, there’s a challenge and then a solution. There’s no narrative arc or takeaway for others if business has always been doing well.
For B2B companies in particular, I like to do case studies, but it can’t just be that your clients never had an issue. I get this a lot with cybersecurity companies where I’ll ask them to talk through a time when their client had an incident and overcame it, and what others can learn from the experience. The companies often just want to discuss clients who never had an incident. I mean there’s not really a story there.
We can anonymize whatever details we need to. But if everything’s going great, you never had a problem, never had to solve anything—a reader can’t really get anything from that.
Q: How is AI impacting your role?
In my role, I definitely don’t use it for any sort of content creation or writing. I use machine translation or transcription AI to help with reporting.
However, within every newsroom around the city, people are experimenting with these tools and trying to understand how these tools are impacting their jobs. But I don’t think we’re ready to publish anything that’s been written by AI.
No surprise to anyone, but because there are so many more AI-generated search results and so much more AI-generated content, all of a sudden, it makes it much harder to be a publication right now. We’re just figuring out how to adapt to the new reality.
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Q: How do you feel about exclusives and embargoes?
They’re valuable if it’s truly embargoed, original information, or company announcements. The thing editors say is that it’s not really an exclusive if no one else wants it. If it’s just an opportunity to cover a new product feature for a company that nobody is searching for and maybe one other publication is going to pick it up—that’s not really an exclusive, per se. I might still do a story if it’s relevant to Inc. readers, but I wouldn’t frame it as an exclusive.
But when we can get exclusives or even just early access, that is helpful. A few days heads up, even if you don’t have all the information, is great so we know it’s coming. A 24-hour turnaround can be hard because sometimes I’ll be focused on something else, or I won’t hear back from my editor in time.
We try to know as early as possible what’s going to be published the next day because it affects newsletters, the homepage, and social media plans. It’s not that we can’t do a last-minute story or breaking news, but early notice about a potential story is helpful when possible.,
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