Exposing practices that lead to widespread shareholder losses and potentially affect the economy is part of the media’s role as watchdog. It’s the journalist’s job to pay attention to companies’ leadership and ask whether directors and management are making the right decisions, and how their actions connect to their company duties.

These questions can result in stories that serve an extremely varied audience, which includes consumers, investors, taxpayers, business leaders, directors, regulators, policymakers and customers.

Learning to recognize whether directors are acting in the shareholders’ best interests and the company’s long-term interests is the reporters’ first step in digging below the surface of the companies they cover.

Directors and managers who don’t follow accepted practices, when others do, should be asked why. (See Chapter 2 for more details on how boards direct strategy and protect shareholder interests, and more on how boards and management interact.)