Category Archives: business journalism

The New BW: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed …

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The new BusinessWeek, rechristened Bloomberg Businessweek, surged into mailboxes and onto newsstands in the last few days. Months in the making, the newest version of the magazine reflects the strengths of both the pub’s 80-year history and its new 1,700-journalist supporting staff. It also boasts a knockout layout, in some ways a return to the substance and elegance of the mag’s heyday of the 1990s with a contemporary gloss.

Indeed, the book overall is a refreshing mix of what made BW a winner in the past and some nice new touches. The Back to the Future treatment includes savvy analysis, depth and graceful writing, combined with a renewed focus on corporations, the finance world and politics. It’s a must-read once again! After too many years of thin books with too little to dine on, this new offering is a full-course meal again – complete with dessert (read on for that).

The new BW isn’t perfect. The Global Economics pages are a confusing jumble, the small-biz section needs work and at least one columnist is off the mark. But the mag overall is sleek and smart and gives readers some insights they won’t get elsewhere – which in the end has always been BW’s drawing card. After all, if the fish isn’t fresh, the wrapper hardly matters, no?

For a page-turning look, check here.

Overall, give this effort a B+, with expectations that As are on the way in future issues. Here are some specifics from a close review by an admittedly biased veteran:

COVER – Clean, dramatic, inviting. Love the powerful photo of Blankfein looking at once like he has only contempt for his critics even as he sorely needs a shot of Pepto-Bismol. “Hard Target” is a great Cover Line. All the white in the boxes and flag at the top seems a bit busy, though. Giving “Bloomberg” equal play with “Businessweek” in the flag is understandable politically, but it makes for a lot of crowded type in the top half of the cover. Grade: B+

CONTENTS PAGE – Knockout presentation. Well-arted and conveys substance.Grade: A

MASTHEAD – Nice to see it back after too long of an absence. The editor’s letter should appear regularly to draw attention to stories behind the stories. It lets readers connect with the writers and editors. Sadly, the staff is a shadow of the force it once was, but the Bloomberg global correspondent system is already bringing some depth not apparent from the masthead. Grade: B

INDEX – what is the point of the Robot Bully? Cartoon is a great idea. This execution is pointless. Find something original. Grade: C

OPENING REMARKS – Well done. This Economist takeoff, an editorial commentary on a story developed later in the book, brings to bear one of the key strengths of magazines: a clear point of view. The pieces here take readers beyond the daily paper – further beyond even than the stories — giving them a reason to read yet another piece about the big news of the day. Props, too, on the future spin in the Weil piece. Love both the Weil and Lewis treatments. Grade: A

GLOBAL ECONOMICS – Disappointing. It seems like a catch-all, a section in newspapers we used to call the “slop page.” Yes, variety can be intriguing. But the Iraq piece is flat and the timeline ridiculously thin and pointless, though nicely colorful. Loved the volcano and Greek crisis pieces, which had the virtue of timeliness. Seems like a more coherent focus on the economically oriented news of the week would work. But it’s hard to see any focus in the section – certainly economics is not what it’s about. And just why is a tractor cruising at the top of page 19? Seems to invite you to look ahead if you are bored with this page. Grade: D

COMPANIES & INDUSTRIES – Heart of the book. BW’s core franchise has been corporate coverage, though it got short shrift in recent years. It’s what employees, managers, shareholders and business partners of companies care about; a natural reader base. You’ve given the section its due here. Intriguing pieces about brand-name companies, with lots of variety, makes this a winning area. BW’s dismantled bureau network – a sad loss — would have been a key asset in putting this section together, and the job now falls to Bloomberg folks and skilled editors in NYC. Grade: A

POLITICS & POLICY – Smart and lively. Again, a core strength of the old BW given its due anew. Love the Emanuel Q&A and the Reshuffle in Obama Land. Why, though, is Zynga overlooking page 38? And James Warren’s column seems to come out of nowhere. Grade: A

TECHNOLOGY – A core franchise of the old BW, reborn. Yes, yes, yes, give us more, since this is the engine of the American economy. Traditionally, BW led the pack in tech and it would be nice to see it do so again. Grade: A

MARKETS & FINANCE – Another franchise area. Top-flight coverage of this crucial sector of the economy is central. Should be mandatory every week, along with Tech and Corp. Smart takes on Goldman here. Would have been nice to have a takeout on the new regulatory bill, however, since it looms large and scary on the horizon. Maybe next week. Grade: A-

ENTERPRISE – Winning idea. But the focus on the lede story is problematic. Is this about B&J or principles or payouts or what? Seems to stray. Whole section does, in fact. Small-biz is often a mixed-bag. Seems like a good idea, but it will be tough to execute well. Don’t get the point of Wadhwa’s column at all: does it just celebrate Boulder or offer a skimpy roadmap on how to duplicate it? Topic deserves a whole section, not just the once-over-lightly here. Grade: B-

FEATURE WELL – Whitman piece is interesting but could have been twice as good at half the length. Apple piece by Burrows, a pro, is superb and takes us well beyond the news – a classic BW treatment. And The City That Got Swapped is excellent, top-drawer psychedelic, as we once said. Love the Cooking with Gas piece, too. Grade: A

ETC – Wonderful, fresh stories, well-executed, well-arted. Not so sure about the Office Sneaker, but the rest hits the target. Nice break from the seriousness that went before. The Mulcahy piece is uneven, with a bit too much cliché for my taste. Hard to avoid pabulum in such pieces, even while you like hearing the voice of the subject. Every good meal needs dessert and this section is savory indeed. Grade: A

Can’t wait to see next week’s book.

Business Journalism: Is There a Tomorrow?

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A cynic might say that Steve Shepard, my old boss at BUSINESS WEEK, has to believe there is a future for the scribbler’s art. He runs the graduate school of journalism at City University of New York after all.

But it’s more than just where he sits that determines where he stands. Steve is a star in the field. The inveterate New Yorker — betrayed by both his accent and his misguided love of the Yankees — has collected just about every award available to magazine journalists. He knows what readers need.

The best proof of that is how he resuscitated the BW franchise. He turned the magazine into a growth vehicle, in the ’80s, after long-time parent McGraw-Hill had begun treating it as a cash cow, an aging brand that had plateaued in the market. In fact, Shepard later saw the book grow so fat that we had to turn away ads because the page count was busting the staples. That happy time was less than a decade ago. Sadly, of course, it is far thinner today.

Steve offered his views on the future of business journalism in this intriguing interview. He’s upbeat about BW’s future under Bloomberg. He’s convinced, too, that there is a future for business news reporting, though it will have to adapt to new formats. Take a gander:

The Future of Business Journalism from CUNY Grad School of Journalism on Vimeo.

Steve, I believe, is spot on that business journalism will endure. The information that business journalists report — whether up-to-the-minute on the wires or in more long-form settings — is too important for people who have money on the line. Can you imagine if Wall Street ran only on rumors (something that sometimes happens already)?

Of course, the issue is how business journalism will support itself. Bloomberg is an intriguing model, since the biggest consumers of its news service pay a lot for it, something on the order of $20,000 a year for access to the famed Bloomberg terminal. Problem is, that’s a limited market, chiefly serious traders on Wall Street.

Bloomberg’s purchase of BW last fall was designed, in part, to expose the outfit’s news and information to a broader audience. BW brought it some 4.5 million readers in print and even more users of the BW Web site. The pub, with its 80-year-old brand name, is quite a crowd-broadener.

But plenty of questions loom. Steve argues, for instance, that there’s room for one long-form business mag. So, does that mean that Forbes and Fortune disappear? And will Bloomberg subsidize BW if it can’t grow fat again with ads? Is it sufficient that it be a marketing vehicle for the name and terminals or other outlets Bloomberg may develop for its products? Can the product succeed as a loss-leader?

Some folks argue that the general news service at Bloomberg is a big loss-leader already. Former colleagues of mine, such as Steve Baker, contend that traders pay for relatively narrow slices of information relevant to their work and ignore the bulk of the news on the machine. Of course, since Bloomberg is private, outsiders can’t know for sure how the news service fares financially.

For fans of long-form business journalism, the question is whether the format can survive only if it has a Big Daddy like Bloomberg. Will analytic and insightful work, the kind that made BW great, pay its own way? Will consumers pay anywhere near what it costs, now that so many advertisers have found other more cost-effective vehicles? Is the current slump more a reflection of economic stress or something deeper? Will business pubs prove to be niche operations serving elite audiences, much in the way that Harper’s or The Atlantic do?

At the end of the day, it seems clear that people who need financial and economic news will be served. They may be served over cell phones, iPads, the Net or someday by brain implants — who knows? — but their demand for information will be met. The challenge for business journalists is to figure out how to make sure these folks pay the freight so they can keep churning out top-quality work. And, for budding journalists, the challenge is to make sure that they can serve up the goods in whatever form the market requires.