Questions & Answers (Hunter Field Editor’s Note)

You’d be surprised and probably amused at the things we debate in the Arkansas Business newsroom.

They range from esoteric grammar and style questions that only journalism nerds would care about to weightier debates about ethics and fairness.

In one recent debate, we discussed whether to capitalize proper noun acronyms that also spell a word. I’m talking about nouns like the Learns Act (or should it be LEARNS)? Traditionally, we’ve only capitalized the first letter of these types of proper nouns even when a company refers to itself in all caps. This rule goes back to Alltel’s decision to format its name to all capital letters to stand out.

Last week, we had an internal discussion about breaking a norm on our Executive Q&A page in this week’s issue. Would anyone notice if we published a full page of questions and answers with America’s Car-Mart CEO Douglas Campbell? Of course people would notice the full page, but would they realize we’d be breaking a tradition of generally only reserving a full page for governors and other top public officials?

For those of you looking for the Q&A, I’ll save you the trouble; we decided to publish a full page of Campbell’s answers.

Why? Simple: He provided a number of insightful answers that we thought you might find valuable.

Precedent is important, but I think we, as journalists, sometimes put a little too much emphasis on it. What is best for the reader ought to be the guiding light.

I’ve felt at times that our Executive Q&As have grown a bit stale, and sometimes expanded space allows for more nuance and personality.

That’s not to say I’m not incredibly grateful to all of those who have agreed to participate in this weekly feature. When I look back at all of the people who have appeared, it’s truly a who’s who of Arkansas business and other executives, and they’ve offered some great insights into their thinking and their businesses.

So what makes a great Q&A? Campbell’s answers provide some nice examples. They contain depth and nuance, but they aren’t overly wordy. They tell us something about his particular company along with the industry, and to some extent the broader lending market, as a whole. He also gave us a look into the personal side of his life and leadership approach.

Answers like these stand in stark contrast to the polished industry jargon we sometimes receive.

A good approach for future Q&A subjects would be to consider your answers as an opportunity to teach our audience something. What unique insights do you have, and how can you communicate those in your answers?

We as a staff also need to try to ask better questions. That brings me to my final point: What questions would you like to see us ask executives? Drop me a line, and your question might be our next.

Email Hunter Field, editor of Arkansas Business, at hfield@abpg.com