Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism, from SABEW and the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

CNBC.com ranks as the No. 1 business/financial news site (non-portal) in June, according to the latest Comscore pageview rankings. CNBC.com was also ranked No. 1 in average minutes per visitor in Comscore.

In June, Comscore reported that CNBC.com had more page views than any other non-portal business news web site.  CNBC.com page views were up 388 percent from June 2007.  In June 2008, there were 10.7 million more pages viewed on CNBC.com than the No. 2 non-portal site, Forbes.  

Page views on Forbes.com declined 61 percent from June 2007 to June 2008.

The average amount of time spent per visitor to CNBC.com in June was 47.7 minutes, according to Comscore data obtained by Talking Biz News.  That’s 52 percent more time than the  No. 2 site in minutes per visitor, Bloomberg.  Minutes per visitor on Yahoo! Finance was 14.8; on CNN Money it was 10.2; and on Fox Business, the average user spent just 1.6 minutes on the site in June.

“We’re absolutely thrilled that only 18 months after relaunching CNBC.com, our growing network of investors and business professionals not only continue to visit us for the latest in market moving news and analysis, they are staying with us to view more pages and for longer periods of time per visit than anyone else in our space” said Meredith Stark, vice president and executive producer of CNBC.com.

Unlike other web sites, which get traffic from related sites, CNBC.com is a standalone web site and doesn’t generate traffic from other NBC News sites such as MSNBC.com.

Lisa Granatstein of Mediaweek reports Friday that Forbes publisher Jim Berrien is stepping down after nine years on the job.

Granatstein writes, “Berrien will leave his post at the end of the of the year and will become chairman of Forbes magazine. The publisher was responsible for the launch last month of luxe titles ForbesLife Executive Woman and ForbesLife Mountain Time.

“The Forbes family ‘will be considering a variety of scenarios,’ said a Forbes spokeswoman.

“On the advertising front, the year has has been tough going for all magazine categories, and that includes the personal finance/business genre. The category is down 2.4 percent year to date to 1,462 ad pages, per the Mediaweek Monitor. Forbes, through Aug. 11, is down 17.8 percent compared to the same period the year prior. Rival Fortune is actually up 4.5 percent to 1,379, although the Time Inc. biweekly has had its own troubles of late, shifting Fortune Small Business to the company’s custom publishing unit.”

Read more here.

Ron Grover of BusinessWeek writes how The Wall Street Journal is being used for News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch’s purposes.

Grover writes, “Take one look at the pages of The Wall Street Journal, and it’s clear that the Rupert Murdoch era is under way. The day after General Motors announced a stunning $15.5 billion quarterly loss, the Journal, which Murdoch has controlled for a year, led instead with the more tantalizing story of a federal scientist’s suicide while under investigation in the anthrax case. On another recent day, the newspaper led off with a story about Iraqi clerics, pushing farther down the page a more traditional Journal piece on the rancorous dispute between oil giant BP and its partners in a Russian oil field.

“O.K., so these aren’t the Page Three beauties who transformed Murdoch’s London paper, The Sun, into a populist moneymaker. But months after it formally came under Murdoch’s sharp eye and equally pointy editor’s pencil, the Journal is clearly aiming at The New York Times in both business and nonbusiness news.

“That may not turn the Journal into a big moneymaker anytime soon, but Murdoch is already claiming victories on his way to a turnaround.”

Read more here.

Jon Fine of BusinessWeek writes that Wall Street Journal subscribers in remote parts of Wyoming and South Dakota are no longer getting their Wall Street Journal newspaper delivered to their homes on the day it’s published.

Fine writes, “A Dow Jones spokesman emailed the following statement:

“‘In some areas, we use third parties and local papers for delivery and some printing. We regularly make small adjustments to our delivery footprint as they adjust their printing and delivery schedules. In this case there were a small number of subscribers who went from same-day USPS delivery to second day because of a shift in production schedules.’

“This round of delivery changes, the spokesman said affect subscribers in portions of South Dakota and Wyoming. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, the total number of Journal subscribers from those states for the six months ending March 31, 2007 (this is the most recent data available) was 3,221. The total number of subscribers to the print Journal during that time was 1.7 million.

“So, yes, this is hardly a move that’s going to cause Journal circulation to tank. But it is a signal that more-remote subscribers to the big national papers—the Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today—are closer than they may realize to no longer getting their daily paper on the day it’s published.”

Read more here.

Robert MacMillan of Reuters writes Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule that allows companies to post news and information on blogs and Web sites, skipping traditional dissemination steps like press release distributors.

The change, writes MacMillan, means that Regulation Fair Disclosure could be violated. And it could cause other problems with how news is distributed.

MacMillan writes, “BusinessWire has embarked on a campaign to lobby against the guidelines. In a commentary distributed to industry publications, it said they ‘will lead to investor inequality and market inefficiencies, troubling trends for skittish retail investors, who place a premium on market fairness.’

“Thomson Reuters refrained from criticizing the rules.

“‘We support the free flow of information, champion innovation and continually monitor key websites for breaking news,’ a company spokesman said.

“‘At the same time, we recognize the risks of fragmentation of news flow and would want to guard against the possibility of erroneous or intentionally misleading information being disseminated to investors,’ he added.

“Dow Jones and Bloomberg officials were unavailable for comment.”

Read more here.

MSNBC.com will begin running data on mortgages, home equity lines and auto loans in its business section, according to an agreement with Bankrate.com.

A story on the site stated, “‘We chose Bankrate.com to provide a solution for this vital information because Bankrate is known for providing clear, objective and unbiased information on rates,’ said msnbc.com business editor Martin Wolk.

“Bankrate surveys nearly 5,000 financial institutions daily for rates on more than 300 financial products, including mortgages, certificates of deposit, auto loans and credit cards. Rates are submitted by financial institutions, then checked by a team of researchers including ‘mystery shoppers’ who verify that the advertised rates are truly available.

“Banks that fall afoul of a ‘three strikes’ policy are ejected from the system and must resubmit their documentation to be readmitted.”

Read more here. MSNBC.com will also run articles from Bankrate’s editorial staff.

Nicholas Yulico of TheStreet.com writes Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into hedge funds and shorting of stocks has silenced some sources.

Yulico writes, “The result is that some general counsels inside hedge funds are now telling their analysts and portfolio managers to be more tight-lipped — especially with journalists.

“One of my best sources, an analyst at a hedge fund that has been subpoenaed in the Lehman probe, says he has been told by his superiors to not talk with the media — not even on background. (In the interest of disclosure, this source and I speak about stocks other than Lehman, a company and stock I’ve never even written an article about.)

“For financial writers like me, who like to dig into public companies and provide the information or angles that some CEOs may not want to hear, this breakdown in dialogue is a detrimental development.”

Read more here.

Mint, a business newspaper in India that has a content-sharing agreement with The Wall Street Journal, is reporting that The Journal has applied with regulators to distribute a facsimile edition in the country.

Mint wrote, “A facsimile edition is the replica of a paper published abroad. Indian laws do not allow such editions to carry local content or advertisements.

“The FIPB website shows that the application was filed on 29 July, two days before News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch arrived in India on a six day unrelated visit. News Corp. acquired Dow Jones for $5 billion in 2007.

“Bill Casey, vice-president, international, WSJ, said that the company had applied to print a facsimile edition of either WSJ or The Wall Street Journal Asia (WSJA). He added that it expected to ‘do a contract with an Indian partner for printing and distribution.’”

Read more here. 

The Reuters Foundation, in collaboration with the Iowa-based Stanley Foundation, is accepting applications from U.S. journalists to participate in an all-expenses-paid journalism training course in Beijing, China from Nov. 10 to Nov. 14.

The program will pair six American journalists with six Chinese journalists in a course designed to help reporters develop international news writing skills for U.S. and Chinese audiences.

Guest speakers, reporting field trips, and classroom training will be an integral part of the course. China’s rise as a global power and connections to the U.S. will be explored with reporting on manufacturing; energy and commodity consumption; a changing Chinese society; and China’s growing political, media, and economic linkages to the world.

The course is aimed at full-time print and broadcast reporters from the United States and China with a minimum of three years experience in journalism.

Economy-class airfare, visa fees, housing accommodations and some meals will be provided.

Participating U.S. journalists will be encouraged to explore connections to China in their local communities and file stories based on the reporting they will conduct in Beijing.

The deadline to apply is Sept. 12. You can apply here.

TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs writes Wednesday that media coverage of Cisco’s earnings was either too positive or too negative, and both missed the real story.

Fuchs writes, “In that aspect, Reuters treatment of Cisco’s earnings was not as positive as it should have been, failing to recognize the significance of the company’s beating expectations without relying as heavily as usual on its standby business to do so.

“But in another aspect, the business media shed Cisco’s earnings in too-positive a light, siding with the small beat of expectations in the quarter just passed vs. the small notes of caution the company laid down about the future.

“The Wall Street Journal made a clear choice, leading with the headline ‘Cisco Profit Climbs 4.4% on Sales Growth’ and subordinating this to the subheadline: ‘Chief Sees Uncertainty Over Economy Lingering for Next Few Quarters.’

“This is not uncommon, nor totally inappropriate. But in all articles that are more positive than not about a company that obviously reported just-better-than-expected earnings, you, the savvy investor, should decide where that positivity stems from. Is what you’re reading colored, for example, by a particularly good day in the stock market?”

Read more here.