In the summer of 2015, rapper 50 Cent put his boxing promotion company up for bankruptcy while trying to avoid paying damages in a sex tape lawsuit.

“It was a totally nuts story,” said Katy Stech (’05), the bankruptcy beat reporter at the Wall Street Journal. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

The tactic was unsuccessful, but it was the first sign that 50 Cent was in financial trouble, Stech recalled. She started investigating the rapper’s financial woes and ended up breaking the story when he filed for bankruptcy.

Although the sex tape lawsuit was settled — 50 Cent had to pay $7 million — months later, Stech is still covering the rapper’s personal bankruptcy case. The most recent developments involve a bankruptcy judge scolding 50 Cent for posting pictures on Instagram with stacks of fake cash.

A former news editor at The Daily Orange, Stech covers how bankruptcy affects corporations, small businesses, individuals and sometimes even celebrities like 50 Cent.

Before starting at The Wall Street Journal in 2011, Stech worked as a business reporter at The Charleston Post and Courier in South Carolina. Although she covered real estate and economic development, Stech knew little about bankruptcy when she applied for her current  job.

“I wanted a job in Washington, D.C., at a major news organization covering something interesting,” she said. “And the bankruptcy job was available.”

Coming into an obscure beat, Stech read court filings, legal briefs, academic papers, old cases and opinions to understand how the bankruptcy system works and who the players are.

“It took me the first few years to really understand what I was talking about,” she said.

Most of Stech’s reporting comes from public court documents, but she supplements that information with interviews from people in the midst of the bankruptcy process. When the story is not about a huge company or a celebrity, Stech often ends up talking to small-business owners or struggling families.

“It can be extremely difficult when you’re dealing with a small-business owner who is losing the company that he built for over a decade, and I try to be sensitive to that.” Stech said. “I think a lot about that before going into an interview, to just be empathetic and aware of all that.”

She credits The D.O. with helping her develop the ability to handle such situations gracefully, as well as having the confidence to talk to strangers and rebound after a mistake.

“Everything that I do now traces back to some moment on Ostrom,” she said.

Published on April 15, 2016 at 6:43 pm

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu