What's business news, and what isn't

St. Petersburg Times business editor Robert Trigaux wrote his Monday column about what makes news — and what doesn’t — in his newspaper. He took readers through five stories from the past week.

Trigaux wrote, “The volume of what passes for potential news – in gobs of e-mailed press releases, in mounds of snail mail, in dozens of phone calls from breathless public relations interns reading scripts and speed-dialing reporters – seems to grow every week. To be fair, some of it actually is legitimate news. But it’s a small percentage.

“It’s a fine line between the New York Times’ classic slogan, All The News That’s Fit To Print, and the only half-in-jest publishing industry takeoff: All The News That Fits, We Print.

“Consider what the St. Petersburg Times decided was the big business news of the past week. Ford Motor’s plan to offer buyouts to all 75,000 of its U.S. hourly workers. The arrival of a new CEO at Tech Data Corp., this area’s largest company. Don’t forget the Cypress Gardens bankruptcy and Allegiant Air’s arrival at St. Pete-Clearwater airport.

“But by no means was that all the business news.”

Read more here.