Nocera speculates about Portfolio's impact

New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera took questions from readers on the newspaper’s Web site on Tuesday, so I posed a question to him about what impact he believed the new Conde Nast Portfolio magazine would have on business journalism.

I thought Nocera would provide an interesting perspective because he once worked for Fortune, and while there he wrote a story about Conde Nast called “The Buzz Factory.”

Nocera replied. He stated, “Hard to know for sure how it will affect other publications. First of all, it is going to be a monthly publication, with glossy pictures and very long articles. Right now the pressure is in the other direction – to do things faster, and get them on the Internet. Forbes is stressing its Internet site almost at the expense of the magazine itself. Fortune and Business Week still are in the business of selling magazines first and foremost, but their Internet sites have becoming increasingly important and their writers are expected to write for it when they have some news or analysis. Conde Nast Portfolio also hopes to have a cool, interesting Web site, but it is much too early to know how it will do against its new competitors. The real question about Conde Nast Porfolio is whether business readers are going to want a magazine that comes out 12 times a year, and is largely lengthy profiles, stories and analysis. If they do, clearly the other magazines will react to that. As for whether it has affected them already, well, Andrew Serwer is the new managing editor of Fortune, my old stomping ground. Maybe that is a coincidence re: the coming of Portfolio. But maybe not.”

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