NPR's Jim Zarroli Brings Concepts of Corporate Governance Home
Jim Zarroli, business reporter for National Public Radio, opened the 2009 Business Ethics Forum on Oct. 28 at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. Speaking to a crowd from Baylor and the community, Zarroli used an analogy from personal experience to shed light on recent corporate struggles and offer a suggestion for improvement. The question and answer session then shifted the theme toward current media issues.
The veteran radio reporter offered a unique perspective to his audience at Baylor, as an expert in both business and media. He regularly reports for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered regarding employment, the stock market, the Federal Reserve System, deregulation, trade and the media. Among many other stories, he covered the accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom, the trial of Martha Stewart, the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the investigation of the insurance industry, the rise of oil prices and the recent global financial crisis.
In this current financial crisis, Zarroli said people have a greater interest in business than he has ever seen before. They ask him questions "and actually stick around and listen to the answers." Fortunately for his listeners, Zarroli gives good answers, clearly communicating difficult subject matter. And it was no different at Baylor, as he offered insight accessible to everyone in the audience, not just business experts.
Zarroli developed his analogy by explaining that he lives in a co-op in Manhattan. Co-ops are similar to condominiums, except buyers don't purchase them. They purchase shares in the company that then leases the apartments. These co-ops utilize share-holder/resident boards to handle the normally mundane tasks related to the building, from hiring the building's managing agent to approving new buyers.
Zarroli's experience on his building's board was similarly routine – until this summer. An unusual controversy divided the generally neighborly residence. For the first time, board elections were contested, with each side – the sitting board and the dissident group – campaigning aggressively against one another.
The tense, uncomfortable situation gave Zarroli an appreciation for the challenges faced by the boards of publicly traded companies and convinced him that talking things out can really help.
Zarroli spoke of the frustration many feel toward large companies whose fiscal irresponsibility required federal bailout money. "Where were the boards?" they ask. But Zarroli explained a board's inherent limitations. Board members are busy people with multiple obligations. They rarely understand company operations as well as the managing agent. If things are going smoothly, a board's natural tendency is to let things be, to keep hands off. Zarroli said, "I'm not excusing it. I just think it's human nature." The boards that failed to adequately monitor the companies behind the economic collapse may not be entirely guilt-free, but their failings are at least understandable in light of their perspectives.
Zarroli realized that the conflict in his building could have been eased if each side took time to listen to the other. Talking helps. Try to understand the opponent, he advised. Zarroli is more convinced than ever that when two sides get together and make an effort to understand their differing perspectives, real progress can be made. It's a lesson, he concluded, that pertains to both his own co-op and to Bank of America.
Following Zarroli's address, a question and answer session shifted the theme toward media issues.
He explained that audiences today are fragmented, divided among many different news sources. No one media outlet has a truly national audience. "There's nothing like Walter Cronkite."
There is so much information, he said, from so many sources; it's like "drinking from a fire hose. I don't know how you absorb it all."
Other questions led the journalist to discuss the changing nature of his field. "Everything is so in flux in the media right now."
He acknowledged the impact of the Internet, explaining that NPR places a huge emphasis on its website. The organization fears the aging of its listeners and hopes to tap a younger audience online. Even Zarroli is getting multimedia training from NPR so he can shoot pictures and write a blog for the website.
But Zarroli was also critical of the web. He compared most aggregator portal sites to "parasites" that link freely to content produced by traditional news services. "I don't see a lot of citizen journalism." As the Internet kills off newspapers and other traditional media, who will take their place and produce content? Zarroli said he doesn't know. But despite uncertainty for journalism's future, he expressed confidence that something will.
Early in his lecture, Zarroli suggested "the secret to keeping a supple mind is learning something new." In sharing his experience and insight, he helped everyone in attendance do just that.
The Business Ethics Forum continues next week, Nov. 12, when Lamar Smith, the Director of Torchmark Corp., speaks at 7:00 p.m. on the 5th Floor of Cashion Academic Center. Smith is the author of "There's More to Life Than the Corner Office." The complete schedule for the Business Ethics Forum: Where Finance Meets Ethics is online at www.baylor.edu/businessethics.
