Stephan Bisaha
Stephan Bisaha turns business reporting into stories about who can afford essentials and who cannot, focusing on how corporate decisions and public policy shape everyday financial pressure. At NPR he covers business through the lens of wealth and poverty, using clear explanations and close listening to show how the economy works for people living closest to the margins.
Business coverage through wealth and poverty
Bisaha’s core subject is the gap between those with financial security and those without, and the systems that widen or narrow that gap. His reporting follows how wages, prices, debt and public benefits interact in real households, rather than treating the economy as an abstract set of indicators. He consistently looks for the downstream effects of business decisions, asking who gains, who pays and how those tradeoffs show up in rent, groceries, medical bills and utility payments. He gravitates toward stories where policy and corporate strategy meet lived experience, tracing how decisions made in boardrooms and regulatory hearings land in working people’s budgets.
Utilities, monopolies and the cost of essential services
A defining thread in Bisaha’s work is the cost of essential services, especially power. In his coverage of two power companies merging, he frames the story not as a routine corporate deal but as a question of affordability, explaining why consolidation in the utility sector matters to customers who simply want to keep the lights on. He treats energy as a basic household necessity whose pricing and reliability are shaped by complicated structures — regulated monopolies, rate cases, infrastructure spending, shareholder expectations — and works to translate that structure into plain language. In these stories he brings in the perspectives of ratepayers, consumer advocates and regulators, using their experiences and decisions to show how far a paycheck stretches after the power bill is paid.
Explaining how policy and corporate decisions hit home
Across his business beat, Bisaha gravitates toward explanatory reporting that answers why an issue matters and what it means in practice for consumers. He breaks down complex topics such as mergers, industry consolidation, price hikes or new regulations into clear, digestible narratives that stay grounded in concrete household choices. His stories often move between a single family’s budget and the broader forces shaping it, connecting local anecdotes to structural trends in markets, labor and public programs. He gives careful attention to the mechanisms of change — how a rule is enforced, how a rate is set, how a company recoups its costs — so that listeners and readers understand not just that something is happening, but how it happens and who has the power to alter it.
Audio-first storytelling with a public radio sensibility
Bisaha works in the sound-rich, interview-driven style of public radio, building pieces around voices that illustrate how business decisions filter through the economy. He favors scenes, conversations and specific dollar amounts over generalities, letting listeners hear how people describe their own financial strain or relief. His reporting balance combines immediacy — tape from community meetings, regulatory hearings, homes and workplaces — with careful explanation that situates those moments in the larger economic picture. Even when he covers technical subjects, he keeps the focus on clarity and fairness rather than jargon, aiming to leave audiences with a working understanding of both the stakes and the underlying systems.
Background in education and the economy
Before concentrating on his current business beat, Bisaha reported on education with a focus on how schools, colleges and training programs shape economic opportunity. That experience shows up in his present work through attention to long-term mobility, human capital and the ways early-life institutions affect later financial stability. Whether he is looking at utility costs, labor conditions or consumer debt, he brings a sustained interest in how today’s policies influence the next generation’s chances to build wealth.
4 more business journalists.
Alex Bronzini-Vender
Alex Bronzini-Vender is a business reporter who focuses on how economic forces and corporate decisions shape specific communities and industries. He covers business for the Washington Monthly, writing reported pieces at the intersection of commerce and public life. His work reflects the magazine’s emphasis on linking markets and money to power, policy, and everyday experience. He treats business not as balance sheets and deals but as choices that affect local realities. In “Fear and Loathing in Palo Alto,” he uses a city tied to the tech sector to examine how a powerful industry influences a community. He grounds his business beat in on-the-ground consequences rather than treating corporate and financial developments in isolation.
Alex Smith
Alex Smith focuses on the business impact of enterprise technology, with a distinctive emphasis on AI literacy and skills rather than technical specifications. They write for Technology Record, covering how artificial intelligence and cloud platforms from major providers are turned into concrete programmes for organisations and governments. Their beat sits at the junction of business strategy, national digital policy and large-scale technology partnerships. They report on national AI literacy programmes and public–private partnerships, showing how policy choices, vendor capabilities and skills gaps intersect. On the business beat, they treat AI and cloud as tools for competitiveness, workforce readiness and participation in a data-driven economy. Their concise, announcement-led reporting highlights who is partnering with whom, what programme is being launched, which technologies underpin it and how it changes capability on the ground for executive readers.
Alison Durkee
Alison Durkee focuses on how law, regulation and politics create business risks for major companies and industries. She is a reporter at Forbes, where she writes news-driven explainers on complex legal and regulatory developments and their impact on corporate strategy, reputation and markets. Her coverage centers on companies under scrutiny, especially in technology and other high-growth sectors, and tracks trials, investigations and fast-changing policy fights. She breaks down lawsuits, inquiries and regulatory moves into clear parts, grounded in timelines, filings and official actions. She reports on generative artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies as tests of legal frameworks and corporate risk management, explaining how issues like intellectual property, safety compliance, consumer protection and governance can reshape product roadmaps, partnerships and investor expectations.
Alyson Shontell
Alyson Shontell covers business through the lens of leadership, using in-depth conversations with powerful executives and founders to show how their decisions shape companies, markets, and public life. She is editor in chief at Fortune, overseeing coverage across the masthead while continuing to write selected high-impact pieces. Her core work is long, reported interviews and profiles of CEOs of large companies, dominant tech firms, and fast-growing startups. She focuses on how leaders think, manage risk, make unconventional calls, and handle crises, culture, and the future of work. Her subjects include corporate chiefs, startup founders, and political figures treated as executives. She probes operating detail, governance, internal culture, and trade-offs around growth, disruption, and workplace models, using concrete examples and direct, accessible prose that foregrounds the subject’s voice while pressing for specifics.