Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

Mark Phillips, formerly editor-in-chief for Boston Metro and assistant city editor for The Repository in Canton, Ohio, now operates LP NewMedia LLC, a media consulting company. He has some interesting ideas about the future of the newspaper that he recently talked about on his blog.

For example, Phillips wants to reorganize the newspaper and make the A section all local news. He also wants to rate stories and put all of the “A” stories, naturally, in the A section. So far, I’m listening.

But Phillips shows his ignorance when he gets to the business section.

He wrote, “One goofy section in local newspapers is ‘business.’ The ‘business’ section of most local newspapers isn’t really business news at all. It’s normally news about a local person who just happens to own a business. The business sections of most U.S. dailies really don’t help someone interested in business or financial news anyway. If a reader is a serious business owner or investor or interested in those topics, they’re reading the Wall Street Journal. And having pared back the stock listings to a hardly useable status due to space (stock listings are a waste of paper; check the Web), the business sections of local newspapers are outdated and just shy of useless.”

I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, most local business people read their local business section before they read the Wall Street Journal. And the section is not outdated and useless. I see business sections every day covering local business and economic stories that the reader can’t find anywhere else.

Read the rest of Phillips here. But his opinion of newspaper business sections is just plain goofy.

TheStreet.com’s Marek Fuchs points out a few headlines from recent business news stories that don’t necessarily convey what the story is about.

Fuchs wrote, “Take a recent Reuters headline that got a lot of play … puh-lease. ‘Fed’s Yellen says economic downturn possible,’ yelled Reuters.

“The headline is at once declarative and incredibly weak. San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen said this weekend that a recession was possible. But, of course, anything is possible — and possible is a long way from probable.

“But The Business Press Maven, who is anything but subtle, is not here to parse words. Besides, we just went through the whole possible/probable debate, thanks to Alan Greenspan’s rantings and recantations. I’m looking at the big and undeniable spread between what Yellen said and what Reuters yelled in the headline.

“Yellen did say that there was ‘potential’ for a downturn, which Reuters put near the top of the article right next to the — oy, there they go again — contention that the economy grew at a 1.3% rate in the first quarter, without mentioning the fact that this number is due to be revised twice and that, in the past, these frequent revisions have raised this first estimate by a factor of 50%.”

Read more here. 

TheDeal.com executive editor Yvette Kantrow takes a look at the latest issue of Fortune magazine and the editor’s note from Andy Serwer and comes away wondering what the big deal is all about.

Kantrow wrote, “He tells us about the issue’s ‘outstanding design,’ exemplified by the ‘evocative, glossy, golden ‘5” on its cover, which touts the magazine’s annual Fortune 500 rank-fest inside. ‘We think it’s an appropriate symbol for what we consider to be the gold standard of business journalism,’ Serwer gushes. Take that, Portfolio! From there, the kudos spout like Old Faithful. We hear about the issue’s ‘world-class reporting and writing.’ A piece on UnitedHealth Group Inc. is dubbed an ‘instant classic.’ Another on the Gap Inc. is ‘exceptionally insightful and deeply reported.’ Staffer David Whitford is described as ‘a Writer (yes, with a capital ‘W’) who can find the soul and poetry in any subject.’

“Oh brother.

“Nothing against Whitford or any of the Fortunistas who are targets of Serwer’s confetti. We realize editor’s notes are mostly about self-­promotion. And Portfolio and its overheated claims that it would redefine business journalism gets some blame for Fortune’s defensive bout of self-aggrandizement. Still, Serwer’s boasts did lead us to cast our usual jaundiced eye on the issue, notably its profile of Ram Charan (written by the Big W, Whitford), whom it dubs ‘the most influential consultant alive.’”

Later, Kantrow noted that Charan has actually written for Fortune and has hosted Fortune conferences. She also noted, “While Charan has written for and been featured in other magazines, the only substantial profile of him before Fortune’s appeared in Fast Company in 2004. It was written by Jennifer Reingold, who now, weirdly enough, works for Fortune. And most of the information in Fortune’s story can be found in Reingold’s earlier piece, including Charan’s claim to fame — his homelessness.”

Read more here. 

MediaWeek’s Mike Shields is reporting that BusinessWeek is looking to launch a new financial site later this week that it hopes will triple its number of pages.

Shields wrote, “Starting May 1, the new Company Insight Center (CIC)—built in conjunction with BusinessWeek sister company Capital IQ (both owned by McGraw-Hill Cos.)—will begin housing a huge amount of free financial information on companies and individuals that is typically restricted to Wall Street types.

“Using the CIC, anyone with Internet access will be able to sift through info on 42,000 public companies, 322,000 private companies and roughly 1 million executives, pulling the latest stock prices and earnings data, as well as listings of companies’ boards of directors. That’s a major point of differentiation versus other such products, according to Roger Neal, Businessweek.com’s general manager.”

Read more here.

The Wall Street Journal said Monday that its circulation has increased since it launched its redesigned paper in January. In comparison, other newspapers saw drops in the first three months of the year.

Individually paid subscriptions rose 4.5 percent, and total subscriptions increased 0.6 percent since the launch of its redesign on Jan. 2. Subscription revenue increased by 1.8 percent.

“The Journal’s 4.5 percent growth in individually paid subscriptions demonstrates that readers have fully embraced the redesign including the more convenient size, improved navigation and increased focus on what the news means,” said L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Journal in a statement. “Our integration of the print and online Journals has also been successful, with paid subscriptions for WSJ.com increasing 20 percent in the first quarter.”

The Journal grew its individually paid subscriptions 3.3 percent in the six-month period ending March 2007, according to the latest ABC FAS-FAX statement released Monday, the third consecutive period of growth. This is reported on the heels of a 9.2 percent increase reflected in the September 2006 ABC statement, which was the paper’s highest growth rate in individually paid subscriptions in more than 25 years.

The Journal maintains an extremely high number of individually paid subscribers — nearly a half million more than the next newspaper reported by ABC.

Total Journal circulation grew to 1,721,694 from 1,713,413 during the March ABC period. The redesigned Journal has been well received by both advertisers and readers, with research showing 80 percent of subscribers prefer the new edition.

Improvements in print/online integration made in January have benefited the Journal franchise as a whole, with growth in both the print and online products. During the first quarter of 2007, paid subscriptions to the Online Journal grew 20% to 931,000, up from last year’s 774,000.

Irin Carmon of Women’s Wear Daily has an item Monday about how Men’s Vogue wanted to purchase an ad in the initial issue of Conde Nast Portfolio because of the apparent overlap in readership. Both magazines are owned by the same company.

Carmon wrote, “But some of the so-called ‘c-level executives’ targeted by Portfolio look a lot like Men’s Vogue’s hoped-for reader — so much so that Vogue publishing director Tom Florio told WWD he’d asked Portfolio publisher David Carey about running an ad for Men’s Vogue in Portfolio. (Ultimately, there was no room, Florio said.) Perhaps that’s why one insider has jokingly dubbed the two recent entrants to the luxury market ‘Mensfolio.’

“Florio rejected the idea that Portfolio directly competes with Men’s Vogue for either readership or advertising. ‘We don’t really see them going at the same guy. That’s not our approach.’ (Portfolio is also hoping for a 40 percent female readership.) Though Men’s Vogue often covers finance and business and the largest chunk of its readers are in finance (12 percent, according to a brand new subscriber study, which also puts the reader’s median household income at $182,548), Florio said: ‘It’s our treatment of it that’s different.’

“Despite that coverage, plus the odd fashion story teased on the cover with business overtones (’Blue-Chip Watch Portfolio’ this month), Men’s Vogue hasn’t captured much business-specific advertising thus far, and overlaps with Portfolio’s launch issue are mostly in fashion and luxury. Though it’s too early to tell, Florio said he thought Portfolio’s coaxing of business advertisers to the company could only help Men’s Vogue.”

Read more here. 

The Society of Newspaper Design web site has a nice Q&A with Zubin Jelveh, who has a column on the Conde Nast Portfolio web site called “Chartistry” that attempts to explain economic and business issues through the use of charts.

In the Q&A, Jelveh said, “Chartistry fits in this mold in that 1) It lets us try a style of reporting that we hadn’t seen elsewhere, and 2) It allows me to combine my two strengths: economics and multimedia.

“The essence of the column is to present economic news and concepts in a visually appealing and — eventually — interactive way. Looking around at how other outlets cover economics — and in my opinion most of them do a fine job at it — we felt that with a field so rich in data, there were a lot of untapped opportunities to give readers a place to go where they can make connections at a glance, while also providing some context for those who wanted to go deeper.”

Later, he added, “My primary short-term goal for Chartistry is to incorporate reader interaction. To start with, one of the pieces next week will allow readers to navigate through different charts according to their interests.

“Ultimately, I’d like to reach a point where in some columns readers will be able discover information about themselves and see where they fit in within the larger group.”

Read more here.

Orange County business columnist Jonathan Lansner writes Sunday that readers chided him five years ago when he wrote that he believed the housing market in California had reached its peak. Now that housing prices are dropping, readers want to know if Lansner is gloating.

He wrote, “Nothing could be further from the truth.

“For starters, this Orange County homeowner – for 21 years — enjoys appreciation as much as anybody else. As an employee in a business that sells real estate advertising, I’m no fool: Part of my paycheck comes from a healthy housing industry. And you may be shocked, but not every journalist thrives on the carnage of war or recession or the like.

“So, trust me, my emotional bias is to the upside when it comes to real estate.

“The little spreadsheet inside me, however, does the worrying. And when you see a rapidly fattening premium for any item – from homes to stocks to Beanie Babies – I tend to question whether it’s a rational extra price worth paying.”

Read more here. Lansner explains the numbers he looks at when writing about the real estate market.

Earl Maucker, the editor of The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, answered a reader’s questions in Sunday’s paper about whether it had placed stories about the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching record highs in the same position in the paper this past week as did earlier this year when the market dropped.

The reader argued that the paper plays up bad news but downplays good news. Maucker disagreed.

Maucker wrote, “News of the Dow setting records? Sure, we had it.

“Last Thursday we had a story headlined: ‘Dow pushes higher, posts first close above 12,800.’ And on Saturday we had a major story: ‘Dow closing in on 13,000 thanks to strong earnings.’ Both were on the front of our Business section.

“On Thursday this week, once the Dow passed the 13,000 threshold, it was front page news.

“Editors don’t always get it right, but generally we have a feel for what is important to the communities we serve.

Read more here.

The Columbus Dispatch will move its business section during the week into the back of the sports section, joining three other papers that have made a similar move in recent months.

The other papers that have cut their standalone business section are the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Akron Beacon-Journal.

Dispatch editor Benjamin Marrison wrote in Sunday’s paper that it was also dropping its printed stock listings and moving them all online. He stated, “To test the results of the market survey conducted by MORI Research of Minneapolis, we have made changes in the past few months and watched for your reaction. So far, the results have supported the data. For instance, the research told us that the stock listings were unnecessary, because only one-tenth of the people in central Ohio monitor their investments through the newspaper.

“We dropped about 380 listings a few months ago and I didn’t hear a complaint. So instead of publishing page after page of listings that readers don’t use, we’re going to make the stock listings available at Dispatch.com. Those who don’t use a computer can call 1-800-555-8355 for stock information.”

Later, he added, “And the Business section will change. The daily Business pages will be published on the back of the Sports section, much as The Flip Side now runs on the back of Life. The location is new, but the amount of daily coverage will remain the same. And we will provide more business news than ever in The Dispatch on Sundays. On Sunday, Business will have its own section, and it has been revamped to be more useful to you.”

Read more here.