Mina Kimes is an enterprise investigative reporter for Bloomberg News. She was recently named the inaugural winner of the Larry Birger Young Business Journalist prize, which honors the best journalist under the age of 30.
In Depth recently spoke with Mina to discuss her career thus far and her work at Bloomberg.
You worked for Fortune prior to Bloomberg. What attracted you about moving to Bloomberg?
When I joined Bloomberg, I was especially eager to take advantage of the organization’s size. Because I work on a wide variety of stories, bouncing between industries and countries, it’s immensely useful to work together with so many journalists with such a wide range of expertise. I recently had the chance to work with a reporter in Santiago on a project, and I’d love to do more collaborations in the future.
What story are you most proud of in your career? What was the process that went into it?
I’m most proud of a story I did about Johnson and Johnson because it was my first investigative project. When I started working on it, I was terrified. It took weeks for people to start returning my calls.
Another one of my favorite stories is a little one. I used to write about investing, and a few years ago, I noticed that a tiny mutual fund in California had been killing it for a while. The manager refused to talk to anyone, so his success was a mystery. After looking through public records, I figured out that he had changed his name. Once I had his real name, I followed a trail of academic papers to find him – it turned out that he was a scientist at Los Alamos.
Can you describe your routine as an investigative reporter? What is the process like?
I find my ideas in a number of places – tips, lawsuits, other news stories that raise interesting questions. My process varies, but I usually start by reading everything I can, especially financial and legal filings. Then I build a list of all of the people I want to contact and send in requests for public records, if applicable. I’ve been able to spend several weeks, and sometimes months, on stories. I’m very fortunate.
What do you find most rewarding about your job?
This may sound like a cliché, but I just like telling stories. Investigative pieces tend to be great stories because they haven’t been told before. The process can be frustrating and stressful, but the result is often deeply rewarding.
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