'I'm on CNBC from 3pm to 5pm. That show is live, so I need to be at our New Jersey headquarters around 12 noon or 11.30am, Monday through Thursday. On Friday morning, I tape my syndicated show, The Wall Street Journal Report, and I'm there by 8.30am. Not a terribly early day but in the mornings I prepare for interviews, whether it's for CNBC, my columns in BusinessWeek
and Reader's Digest or my radio show.
We also have a morning editorial call about the news of the day. The producers put a rundown together. We talk about who would be appropriate guests. I'm calling guests, analysts, CEOs all morning. Last week I had an 8am phone interview with the lawyer for Tom Perkins, who stepped off the Hewlett-Packard board. This morning I had a 7.30am conference call with our people in Singapore. I try to conduct as much of my business as possible in New York in the morning before heading to New Jersey. Today I'm having lunch with John Mack [chief executive of Morgan Stanley] but often I lunch on the run.
I do an enormous amount of research myself, although I have surrounded myself with brilliant people. I am the kind of personality who doesn't trust a lot of people with my stuff. It's my face out there. If there's an inaccuracy, it's me that they call. My business is all about relationships and access. I spend my life fostering relationships so that if something newsworthy is happening, those companies will come to me because of the rapport. I do just as many interviews off-the-record as on. That's why
I think people call me for the first interview.
Bob Nardelli [chief executive of Home Depot] was recently under fire [for receiving US$245 million in compensation over five years, despite a dwindling stock price]. I kept sending him e-mails saying, 'Bob, you've got to get out from under the rock. You need to explain this. Do it with me.' He gave me his first interview. And he knew I would ask tough questions but not in a 'gotcha' kind of way. My interviews speak for themselves. I ask the issues of the day, the tough questions. But I'm not an ill-wisher.