Questionnaire for Journalists: Javier Hasse, Benzinga/Forbes/El Planteo
ERPR’s series, “Questionnaire for Journalists,” features members of the media and asks about their lives and careers.
Javier Hasse
I connected with Javier Hasse, managing director of Benzinga Cannabis, senior contributor to Forbes, co-founder and CEO of Spanish news site El Planteo and best-selling book author with Entrepreneur Media.
How did you first get into journalism? What was your first job in journalism?
I got out of college in Argentina at age 22 and landed a crazy job writing about finance. It was a good gig — I was getting published on The Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha and MarketWatch, making money and traveling the world.
I was working for a company that outsourced content services. Then the company went bankrupt. I salvaged it and started managing this team of about 20 people. And what I did was transfer 95% of the profits to them. And you know, at one point, I got kind of got tired of managing people and I just handed the entire company to writers and they did whatever they wanted with each one of the contracts.
One day I was writing and an editor asked me if I wanted to write an article on cannabis stocks. I think that was 2013 or 2014 . I published this one article and I just started getting emails from people and you know, it just snowballs. There weren’t a lot of people writing about financing cannabis news, especially in mainstream media. That was basically it — that’s mostly how I got into cannabis writing.
How do you decide what you write or publish?
All my days are completely focused on cannabis, hemp, CBD, and sometimes psychedelics. At Benzinga alone, we put out about 150 articles on cannabis every week. So our criteria are to cover anything and everything we can. Of course, we do selectively, there’s a lot of news. We have focused on finance and things that will impact investors’ decisions, and of course, anything related to publicly traded companies, but mostly anything that could be relevant for either an investor or anyone in business.
What is the most interesting news story you’re following right now that you’re not covering?
There’s a big situation going on in South America right now, where several countries are on the verge of like military coups. The gist of it: anti-democratic moves and leaders in Bolivia, Peru, Brazil…
The region is pretty messed up right now. So I’m keeping an eye on that. There’s not a lot I can report on there. Nothing related to cannabis or hemp; it’s just political turmoil that happens to be next door to me.
If you weren’t in journalism, what would you be doing?
Taking portraits of people. I have this film camera from the 70s that my father gave me and it’s the only camera I ever use. So because I travel a lot, I just take my camera everywhere and stop random people on the streets and just ask them if I can take a picture of them. I have like probably 5000 portraits, I’m a hoarder. There are probably 700 of them in my Instagram account alone.
What do you read or watch every morning?
I wake up, I have some coffee and look at my many messages and notifications, and take a look at the stories that people pitch just to see what’s interesting and what should be approved. I have an RSS feed with a bunch of news sources on cannabis that I keep open. And then throughout the course of the day, I look at the news. I fill out the course of the day with regular news, but I start my day by looking at all the cannabis and hemp stuff, and then throughout the course of the day I find out what else is happening.
What is your motto?
I don’t have a motto I like that’s what drives me — I want to be happy and make other people happy. I’m really committed to a bunch of causes and stuff, but it’s like, honestly what I want to do is be happy and try and make as many people as happy as possible. Providing either love opportunities, support, containment, whatever it is.
What is your greatest extravagance?
The picture hoarding qualifies — just walking around the street like that is pretty bizarre. I just walk up to random people and say “Hi I’m a photographer, I take pictures of people I like — I promise you will love it.” I just go around doing that, it is pretty weird. Other than that is I live a pretty normal life, but everything about my life is pretty crazy at the same time.
Think of it this way: if someone would have told you five years ago that traveling the world with all expenses paid, staying at five-star hotels, before you’re 30 years old, would be a full-time job: What would you say?
I get to talk with the craziest people and celebrities, and get to tour weed facilities in the mountains with 20,000 plants, and smoke with Bob Marley’s kids. It’s one of those things — everything about this sort of existence is pretty surreal. Especially the fact that most of what I’m doing, I’m doing for work. I’m not an extravagant person. I’m pretty boring. Or am I?