I was a business journalist who could hardly bring himself to even read about what’s considered one of the most important activities in business . Mergers are big stories because they can reshape whole industries, lead to mass layoffs and cause household names to disappear forever. But the process can feel abstract and breathless. I would roll my eyes at colleagues when they got excited about imminent mergers and acquisitions, or M&A, as it is known on Wall Street, and pray that editors would not ask me to help out on deal stories.

Not anymore. Deals are fascinating — and deserve ambitious coverage .

It took over 20 years for me to get here, so let me explain why my conversion took so long.

Reporters are drawn to where the worst things are happening. And plenty has gone wrong in the past two decades in business and finance.

I spent much of the 2000s writing about corporate accounting scandals, including Enron’s. I left journalism to pastor a church, but when that didn’t work out , I returned to reporting just in time for the financial crisis, which dominated business coverage for years.

It was quite an education. Enron’s collapse taught me that large companies can be rotten. The financial crisis showed me that the system can be, too.