James Faris: Economic dichotomies and pitching advice for PR professionals

Larissa Padden  00:06

Hello and welcome back to Cogcast. Cognito’s podcast where we talk to journalist and media pros on everything that’s happening in the world of journalism and PR. I’m Larissa Paddon, your host today, and a former journalist turned PR professional. With me today is James Faris, a senior investing reporter for Insider, where he writes about investment strategies, and what’s next for stocks and the economy. Welcome, James,

James Faris  00:40

Thanks for having me.

Larissa Padden  00:41

Great. So I wanted to start out by having you tell us a little bit about yourself how long you’ve been at Insider. And during the intro, I did say that you were the senior investing reporter. But can you give us a little more detail on what you’re currently focused on?

James Faris  00:55

Absolutely. So I am, as you said, senior reporter at Business Insider, it’s coming up on three years, I joined in mid June. So I have been on the investing team that entire time, mostly focused on investing strategy. And what that really entails is talking to people who manage money, mutual fund managers, primarily, some hedge fund managers, people who design ETFs. And I asked them about how they invest, what they see as their best investments, their favorite ideas right now, where the stock market is heading, potentially, and where the economy is heading, if that’s relevant to their investing process. I also talk to stock market strategists about where stocks are headed. A lot of times it’s the S&P 500, and price targets. And then I will speak with economists as well about developments in the economy, the trajectory and look for interest rates and inflation are what else is going on, whether its economic and geopolitical volatility and other risks that they see. So that’s my main area of focus. Over the last few years, I’ve evolved my beat a little bit, I also focus on from time to time, real estate, and I will write about where home prices and apartment prices, so rents are headed, and some trends there. And then how mortgage rates and home supply and apartment supply plays into that. So that’s my main area of focus. And then I do a little bit of reporting from time to time with the media team, media and entertainment. And I will work with them on the business of media. So it’s a good mix, it keeps me busy, but it’s always something interesting going on. So that’s, that’s what I’ve been up to.

Larissa Padden  02:37

Oh, that is interesting, very finance heavy. And I am always curious, when I was a reporter, almost the entirety of my career was finance. I was an art history major. I had no financial background, when I started reporting, it was the job that was offered to me at the time, did you go into it thinking you were going to be solely finance focus? Is that what you wanted to do?

James Faris  02:56

It was but halfway through college, I decided to make the transition from a sports focus, because I’m a huge sports fan. But I decided for a variety of reasons to switch from that into the business reporting side. So I was I did join Insider at the time, and BI now, the investing team with a full focus on the stock market and the economy. But I always say in this industry, it really helps to be flexible and to be ready to pivot. And when I decided that I wanted to try something different than reporting on sports. I gave business reporting a shot and I really enjoyed it. So I was pretty set on that coming out of school.

Larissa Padden  03:35

You mentioned the economy a couple of times, and I did see your recent reporting is more focused on strategy and less around Treasury markets and kind of where rates are going. But are you sick of the rates cut conversation?

James Faris  03:48

Well, sick is a strong way to put it, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate either. I think something I do really enjoy a lot of times about my beat is it’s very cyclical. So the structure of earnings season, for example, it’s four quarters a year, and the same companies report. You start with the banks. And then a couple weeks later, you get the big tech companies. And it’s it is very cyclical in that. And so there’s some times where earnings are the focus. Sometimes interest rates are the focus depending on if the Fed is meeting or inflation data or jobs data is getting released. So it does go in cycles. There has been a big focus on interest rates lately, but the narrative has really been by enlarge the same for a couple of months as the economy has done better than expected and inflation has persisted higher than expected. We are getting almost certainly fewer interest rate cuts this year than anticipated. That’s been clear for the last few weeks, probably a month or two. And now the narrative seems on that side anyway locked in for probably the remainder of the year. Maybe an interest rate cut or two. Sometimes people will say three cuts now but there is a growing possibility that there won’t be any interest rate cuts at all. So I think that is a very big development. And so that’s something I’ve written about and focused on in the last few months. But I think going forward, there’s probably going to need to be a focus elsewhere. It’s okay, this narrative seems to be buttoned up for now, what are we going to focus on that’s new, interesting and fresh to readers?

Larissa Padden  05:23

It is funny, you mentioned the word cyclical, because I feel like we’re in this environment. And this is gonna sound crazy to people listening, because, you know, there’s so much conversation about this changing economy that we’re in, but it does feel like we talk about big changes to the market. And we’re in a little bit of a holding pattern when it comes to rate cuts when it comes to inflation. So What trends are you seeing and what is resonating with your readers right now?

James Faris  05:48

Sure. So one of the things that I’ve been focused on is earnings, and they were strong. Once again, it seems like there is just a pattern of the bar is set relatively low on earnings, like analysts and companies themselves will under promise so that they can hopefully deliver and over deliver. And we saw coming into the q1 earnings season. And these are the earnings that companies generated in the first three months of the year, but they’re just being reported now, even though we’re halfway through q2, or well into it. So those q1 results, the expectations were a bit higher, but we’ve exceeded, again, and actually, I wrote last week, a story setting a note that this is the biggest surprise in an earnings season in a few years. So that’s pretty notable that we’re exceeding expectations. However, stocks haven’t responded to that, or at least not in April, they pulled back significantly, and they did not rise on that better earnings news, I think a lot of it was still priced in to the market. So that’s how I was viewing it. But I think just getting back to fundamentals, the two parts that when it comes to stocks of what to earnings look like, how are companies growing their bottom lines and their profits? And revenue is tied to that as well. So taking a look at the bottom line, but then also, what are investors willing to pay for the earnings, which comes back to of course, the valuations that are tied to interest rates. So it might seem a little bit in the weeds. But I think there has been so much focus on the interest rates in the valuation side. And obviously, that still matters. But since the narrative with the Fed seems to be a lot clearer going forward, and there’s less uncertainty, I think taking a look at that bottom line and where earnings growth is, is going to be a really key focus that people are maybe shifting their attention to.

Larissa Padden  07:43

It’s an interesting conversation, right? Because the sentiment is that the economy is doing poorly, and that people are unhappy. But then you report about these strong earnings and that companies are doing well. And you know, consumers are still buying and stocks are doing well. I mean is that kind of what you’re seeing is the opposite of what people are feeling.

James Faris  08:01

It’s fascinating. This is one of the it’s been discussed at length. But this is an absolutely fascinating dichotomy, the split between the perception and the reality, and what economists say and what stock market strategists and the investment professionals investment chiefs that I speak to, how they view the economy and how it actually is. For example, the unemployment rate is at 3.8%, which is very strong, that’s only a few percentage points up from multi-decade lows, 3.5% in that neighborhood would be like a 50 year low. So we’re not too far from that we’re at a very strong level of there. GDP growth in the third and fourth quarters to the back half of last year, it was 3.5% to 5% in that range. Now it slowed a little bit in the first quarter. And that’s just a back of the hand barometer for how the economy is performing. It’s certainly not perfect. That’s so you take a look at low unemployment rate, and pretty strong jobs growth and strong GDP growth. corporate earnings are excellent. And you have an economy that looks really strong, and by for all intents and purposes, really seems healthy. But sentiment surveys in the data on the ground just doesn’t bid that out. If you talk to people, I think there’s many surveys where you can find that are probably up to date of, oh, half the country or a sizable either majority or a plurality of people say, ‘Oh, the economy isn’t good,’ but the data would contradict that. So why is that? And this has been people have speculated about this at length. I would say the main reason that I can think of having been on this beat and just being puzzled by this. It really comes down to inflation. So inflation is synonymous for price growth. And we can all see, everyone can notice prices are a lot more expensive for a variety of reasons than they were a few years ago, inflation has risen significantly. But if you remember, inflation is synonymous for price growth, price growth has risen in a lot of people, the rate of inflation is down significantly from its peak. So at its peak, the official inflation reading was 9, close to 10%. But, you know, 9.8%, I believe, and that’s extremely high. That’s the highest it had been in decades, like 50 years or so. And now inflation is at about 3%. So an economist could say, inflation, the price growth rate is down significantly. And that is 100%. True. However, prices are still rising, prices are rising just at a slower rate or a slower pace. It’s like a car that is still traveling and still moving. It’s just accelerating even. But at a slower pace. However, it’s still accelerating. And the households and people in the economy are like, ‘What do you mean, inflation is down, prices are still up.’ And both of those things are true. But the wording of it, especially for people who don’t follow this, for a living, like I do, can be confusing and misleading. And I totally understand that. So I think the disconnect is people say my grocery bill is still up, it’s still higher than it was last year. Now you maybe it goes from $100 to $120 to $140 and now it’s $150. That’s a slower rate. But they’re saying, look, it’s still more than it was. So I think that’s the reason behind the disconnect. And of course, political sentiment plays into that typically, whoever’s in office, the partisan perception of that very significantly, and you can see, depending on people’s political affiliation, whenever the other side comes into power, it almost is a mirror image flip of 80% approve 20% approve 20% approve 80% approve, depending on who’s so I think that’s part of it. But I absolutely believe the the perception of the economy’s affected by inflation. And people might be feeling like they’re gaslit to use that word, hopefully, properly. It’s people feel like why are you telling me that prices are down when they’re not? And that’s a fair point. So I think that all plays into it and trying to explain that dichotomy is something that I’ve tried to do in my reporting in the last couple years.

Larissa Padden  12:14

In terms of affordability, housing plays a big part in that right, like the ability to buy a home and a lot of people feel like they don’t have that. And that kind of pivots. My next question, which is you also report on real estate and you had mentioned mortgages? How is that landscape and reporting on that landscape kind of changed over the past two to three years? And are you finding it challenging to find sources that are willing to talk about it?

James Faris  12:38

Sure. So I actually today, and by the time this is out, people can go back and read this, I was reading about real estate today, the National Association of Realtors put out a q1 report on home prices. And they cover 221 metropolitan areas in the US, and they look at existing single family homes. So just think of your typical house that’s already built, it’s not new. And out of all those markets, tuner 21, markets 93%, saw home prices rise in the first quarter of 2024. And only 15, markets fell only 15. Markets had houses that on average, were cheaper in the first three months of this year than the prior period of in 2023. So I think affordability, certainly I mean, not only are households getting hit with inflation at the grocery store, and all throughout the economy, but also in the housing market, if they’re in the market for that. And not everyone is but it still is something to keep in mind, including for renters. So that’s something I’ve been focused on in terms of how I sourced that one thing I’m looking for with real estate, since it’s not my primary beat, it’s not something I’m writing about every day, is I look for datasets. And really, if something crazy is happening, talking to someone, just in the real estate arena can be helpful. But a lot of times I’m looking for a data set, what I would love to see a list of home prices that are either rising or falling. So I can analyze that list of cities where apartment prices are rising or falling. And then depending on that I’ll look at, you know, apartments are getting more expensive here. They’re getting cheaper here. And the same goes for home prices. So that’s how I sourced that. And sometimes I’ll talk to people for that. But a lot of times I’m just trying to look at the data and see what story it can tell.

Larissa Padden  14:29

Speaking of sources, I’m always curious how reporters view PR as a function in this media ecosystem. And I know I found a lot of my sources at conferences. I use LinkedIn a lot. So I’d be curious to learn how you find your sources, if it’s organically in the world through social media, and do you accept a lot of intros from PR professionals in pitches?

James Faris  14:52

It’s a great question. So I have built up a number of sources over my few years at Business Insider, and there are people that I’ve talked to before. And it’s really nice going back to them because I can go back and say, ‘Okay, last time you said this the time before you said that you are right this time wrong the last time, what do you think this time?’ and putting their views in the proper context, I always like to meet new sources as well, I do feel a lot of pitches through my inbox. A lot of times, it’s, you know, dozens or hundreds in a week, and I welcome them I what I try and do, because I’m naturally a very thorough person, I go through each one. Now, sometimes it’s, I give it a look for a minute or two, but a lot of times, it’s like one or two seconds, because it’s a lot of them are off base. And I can talk about why later. But I am open to new sources who have something to say that is differentiated, that’s one of the main things that I’m looking for is someone who I mean, obviously, there is a standard of credibility, like, you know, whether they’re like working at a large firm or a small firm, that doesn’t always I mean, someone like Goldman Sachs, like, wow, if they’re the top Market Strategist, there, that’s someone I’m almost always gonna be interested in talking to, if already smaller and medium sized firm, that’s totally fine. I try and give people an equal shot and say, I want to hear what they have to say, provided that it is different, because I’m getting so many of these pitches in my inbox that I have to go through. And if they say something along the lines of, well, we’re only expecting one or two interest rate cuts this year, because inflation has persisted and economic growth has been healthy. And so we’re not anticipating any cuts. If they says something like that, which is the consensus it which is why why I was able to pull it off the top of my head, a lot of people are saying that same thing. So someone is saying that that’s great, but no offense, but I could find a dozen or 2 or 100 people that could say something similar, if someone says we’re actually still counting on four or five interest rate cuts this year, and it’s midway through the year with none, that catches my attention, because that is significantly out of the consensus. If they say we’re not expecting any rate cuts, for example, for the rest of this year, and none in 2025. That also catches my attention. Now, it’s going to be harder to find people who say those things because it is less likely potentially. And you also want to have people with credibility, not someone who’s just going to say anything, for any reason, and not. And that’s one of the reasons I will go back and say, Oh, what did they say last time, they said they were going to be eight cuts this year, and now there’s gonna be one or two, maybe I don’t talk to that person again. Or maybe I take it with a grain of salt. So I want to find people that are saying things out of a consensus that aren’t just saying something to say something.

Larissa Padden  17:48

Right. So a balance of like having a slightly counterintuitive point of view, but also being realistic.

James Faris  17:56

I would say so. And I talk to people and determine how they think in their process and go from there. And sometimes it’s an intro call. And it’s just good to keep in mind, and sometimes it does lead to a story. And other times, it’s a main person gonna be relying on for the future. So you really never know. But I would say sometimes that’s, that’s probably like a good way to put it.

Larissa Padden  18:24

It’s so refreshing. Because we always tell clients, two things. One, it’s a relationship game, you know, you’re going to have these conversations, don’t go into it with the expectation that there’s going to be immediate coverage from it, because you’re going to build that relationship and credibility over time. And then they’ll come back to you when you know when they need something. So that’s always good to hear. But you’ve been so generous with your time. I don’t want to take up too much more. But we want the brutal, honest truth, no hard feelings. What do you wish PR professionals would do more of? And less of?

James Faris  18:55

It’s a great question. I was thinking about that a little bit for coming here. And I would say the pitch should be tailored to the coverage of the reporter you’re trying to reach. And it sounds like a clear cut and obvious thing, but you would be surprised or maybe you wouldn’t have how often it’s completely off base of – Oh, I remember I got pitched one time because I live in Brooklyn. And it’s like, This restaurant is opening in Brooklyn. It’s like okay, but do you realize that I write about investing strategy and real estate and either they did and they didn’t care or they didn’t know at all and things like that. It’s that is a little bit frustrating, because every second or minute I spend reading a pitch that’s not relevant for me. And, and by the way, for a local reporter. That’s a great pitch potentially, but just not from me. And vice versa. If you pitch a local reporter, something about the Fed and interest rates, that’s going to be a terrible pitch for them, but maybe it’s a great pitch for me. So I think it’s all relative and should be tailored and any minute I spend on that is something I can’t spend somewhere else. And everyone’s time is valuable. And they spend time typing that out, I’m sure and that’s not a good use of their time. So it should be relevant and tailored. Sometimes I will also have PR people say, ‘Oh, I read your story about this’, but then the pitch is not, I can tell they didn’t read it, because the pitch has nothing to do that. And so that is a pet peeve. I, you know, I tried to have grace to that. And it’s like, you know, I, I get it, it is a numbers game. But I think having a more discerning focus on who you reach out to, will improve results, instead of just the numbers game of, you know, throwing seed into a field and just like anywhere, it goes anywhere it lands is fine. It’s like, if you can plant that a little bit more strategically, your results might be better with less work. And then something that’s something I would want to see more of something I’d see less of, I mean, pitches that are off might be I mean, it’s all tied together. So it I mean, you have to think like I am the audience for a communications professional. So what am I as the audience going to want, and then I have to be thinking about my audience downstream their of what are they going to want to read. And if I did write something that’s off of what I normally do, then that’s not serving my reader and so I have to prioritize and preserve my time in that way.

Larissa Padden  21:23

It is funny how many wildly off-base pitches reporters get, I used to get them all the time when I was a reporter, and I’m not just saying this to drink the Cognito Kool-Aid, but we really do spend a lot of time trying to find the right reporter for each pitch. So it is it is interesting that some people do really spray and pray.

James Faris  21:42

I was just gonna say one more thing that is helpful I remembered, is that if you can include some detail of not just who this person is, in their title, if you can include some of their views, that really helps me screen and determine Okay, is this person saying what everyone and their mother is saying? Or are they saying really something that’s differentiated, new and fresh? And so if there are some, okay, here’s some of their views. Here’s a summary. And then point a point B, point C, I have one PR person in my inbox, who does this and I always give his pitches a look, because I don’t know the people he’s pitching at all. But because he gives a summary of their views, okay, this person is bearish, this person is optimistic about tech stocks, this person is skeptical, the Fed whatever the case may be, I can know who it is not just hey, do you want to talk to this person? They’re the Chief Investment Officer at this firm. So that’s something that I would also add.

Larissa Padden  22:35

So could you attempt to give us an estimate of how many pitches you get a week, and then how many of those pitches are relevant to you?

James Faris  22:44

It’s a lot, dozens per day, maybe like 100 to 150. But then that doesn’t count the email, all the other email lists I’m on I mean, in terms of like, investing related pitches, and not like spam, probably somewhere in that range. But if you put it all together, like if I were to go on vacation for a week, which I’m doing later this summer, and I’m excited about, and then come back and look at my inbox. I don’t know, maybe it’s in like 400- 500 range. And maybe for some people, that’s not a lot. But for me, that’s like a ton. So that’s just an estimate. It’s a lot to sort through, there needs to be some AI bot that helps screen and clear. I don’t know if someone’s already invented that.

Larissa Padden  23:26

They have it, there will be one soon. Yeah.

James Faris  23:28

It would be helpful. Because because it is a lot in you know, some of them, I can just go through and I’m like, okay, delete, delete, but I, if they’re good ones, I try and I have a little label and folder in my email, where if it’s like a source, and I’m not going to write something about them now. But like for the future, I’ll move them to that folder. And then it gets out of my inbox. But then if I’m writing on writing about a big picture story of what’s gonna happen for q2 earnings, I can go through and see, alright, who are the, like eight people that I put in this one, reach out to folder, and then, you know, see who gets back to me and then boom, I have a half dozen people that I can speak to on relatively short notice. That’s something I do. And so even if I don’t respond, it isn’t lost forever, unnecessarily. But that’s just how I approach it. And I don’t know if anyone else says the same thing. But.

Larissa Padden  24:19

Okay, James, last question. As a reporter, what is your dream interview? No restrictions, no specific sector? Who would you love to interview?

James Faris  24:28

I would say it would be of course, a long shot but outside of the investing world and the real estate world, I would say Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, he is arguably the most powerful person in Hollywood. And I’m very interested in the business of media and entertainment. And that is someone of course that has a treasure trove of knowledge and experience but also someone who’s at the forefront of a company in Disney that is just in a really interesting spot with what they’re doing with streaming the declining of the line of cable TV, their sports business with ESPN still managing the parks and experiences in the cruises business. And so all of that is something it’s like a juggling act on a high wire, like a tight rope. So that is something, of course, would be a dream interview. But he has been rumored to say he’s retiring. He said he’s going to retire. And he’s been rumored to pick a successor that hasn’t happened yet. So maybe in a few years, he will still be the CEO and you never know. But that’s what I would say as of now.

Larissa Padden  25:31

Well, we’ll keep our fingers crossed for you. Thanks for joining us.

James Faris  25:35

Thank you so much for having me.