Media Movers: Catching up with Bisnow’s Mark Bonner

Welcome to the last Media Movers column of 2023! It has been a great year featuring interviews with journalists from a variety of backgrounds and publications. We’re wrapping it up with Mark F. Bonner, EIC and vice president of content for Bisnow, a real estate publication.

So many journalists get caught up in the race to the big names – where are only so many jobs to be had – and they forget that amazing work can be done anywhere. Trade pubs enjoy a loyal reader base that, in many cases, pay well for what they consider critical information to their industry. 

Mark knows that more than anyone else. I chatted with him about Bisnow’s niche, the state of commercial real estate and his dream sports job. Thank you, Mark, for such thoughtful answers that include a special coffee calculation.

I hope that all of our valued readers have an amazing holiday. 

Dawn: Where does Bisnow fit in the editorial landscape? 

Mark: Bisnow is pretty unique. We’re the largest business publication in the world that focuses exclusively on the multitrillion-dollar commercial real estate industry — primarily in the U.S., UK, Canada and Ireland. It’s a critical industry to the global economy and society at large. Anyone who walks the Earth has some sort of relationship with commercial property because it represents where you work, where you sleep, where you shop, where you watch sports and concerts, where you live your life. And anyone who did not realize that found out during the pandemic. Being unable to go to those places had an enormous impact on economies at every level, but it also affected the collective psychology, which we still see playing out across the planet. Marrying the bricks and mortar to the dollars and human culture is a consequential crossroads and we stand right in the middle of it. 

Dawn: What role do events play in your business? 

Mark: Depending on who you ask, events are probably what most people know us for. In 2023, we hosted 357 events and webinars around the world. We welcomed 85,000 attendees and 5,000 speakers — the biggest developers, lenders, analysts, thought leaders and owner-operators in the game. We did some fun math this year and we discovered that we poured about 10,000 gallons of coffee, served 34,000 breakfast sandwiches and unfolded exactly 73,150 chairs. It’s mind-blowing. We take a lot of pride in being the town square for the industry. So, to answer your question, events are a crucial part of our business and they are a critical part of how CRE closes deals and networks and, hopefully, expands their minds.

Dawn: What publications do you read to stay abreast of real estate trends? 

Mark: Too many to name here. I read all of our direct competition, which I respect and admire, but I also take in a lot of raw data from research reports and dense analyses that emanate from the industry and beyond. But if I only read that sort of news and information, I fear I would slip into a narrow vision of what the industry is and how it operates. So, my most important reading tends to not have any direct relevance to commercial real estate. For me, it’s not so much what I read, but how I read what is in front of me. Whether I am reading about the Russia-Ukraine War or the upcoming U.S. presidential election or the squabbles between LIV Golf and the PGA or something juicy in the tabloids, I am always looking for the dots that connect back to the built world — and they usually do. At Bisnow, I think some of our best story ideas have come from this type of reading and critical thinking.

Dawn: What are your thoughts on the return-to-office trends? Is CRE in trouble or will it ride this out? 

Mark: It’s one of the most consequential socioeconomic experiments of our lifetimes. To illustrate this point, let’s think about the alphabet. Your home is the letter A and your office is the letter Z. Between A and Z there are 24 other letters or, figuratively speaking, 24 other physical places that you might interact with along the way — like a parking lot or a coffee shop or the grocery store or a doctor’s office, to name a few. So, the work-from-home movement is not just about the office, it’s also about everywhere in between and these alterations to human behavior are wreaking havoc on all of it at the moment, which is having a profound effect on where people are spending their time and money, which in turn affects taxes, property values, rents and much more. I do not think we’re going back to what the office was before the pandemic, but I do think it will survive and we will continue to be there in the years ahead. It will be different and the market, and all of us, will adjust.

Is CRE in trouble? Yes and no. Some sectors are struggling right now, such as office, as we discussed, but others are doing extremely well, such as industrial, life sciences, data centers and most things surrounding cannabis and EV infrastructure. It’s cyclical. Real estate asset classes rise and fall, but as ever, the greater trend of the built world is rising. It’s changing, in some places quite painfully, but it will altogether continue growing and it will continue to be a major investment class. 

The bottom line is humans are still humans and throughout history, we have craved places for commerce and culture. That isn’t going to change. So, CRE will more than ride this out.

Dawn: What impact do you think AI will have on the field? 

Mark: From a new lens, what I am seeing right now is both exciting and disappointing. We’ve seen some use cases go wrong in terms of inaccuracies and a troubling lack of transparency when it comes to readers and news teams, but we have also seen examples that are quite promising for the future. I have embraced it and have begun experimenting with it internally for some of our work at Bisnow, and even externally with various levels of success. I think the quarters of journalism who fear it have good reason to be apprehensive, especially when they see corporations use it to cut corners and perhaps jobs. But I will also say this: anyone in our field who isn’t trying to figure it out and incorporate it into their workflow — whether to enhance human reporting and storytelling or to crunch complex data sets and beyond — is risking their future. As they say, fools rush in, but I also believe there are plenty of fools on the sideline. As an industry, we need to embrace this technology because it’s not going away.

Dawn: Tell me about your time at International Business Times. What was that like? 

Mark: I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, we had a murderer’s row of reporters and editors who did groundbreaking work that won awards and challenged the status quo around the world. The newsroom was stronger than garlic and it was full-tilt fun, too. Participating in a true 24/7 news team in time zones all over the world is a unique high — and I absolutely loved being a part of it.

On the other hand, the business side was troubled from the start of my tenure and that trouble boiled over time and again causing all sorts of challenges for a team that just wanted to do their work without having to worry about simple things like getting paid on time — or at all. 

For a variety of reasons that were beyond our control, it ended with mass layoffs which also included me. That doesn’t sit well with me to this day, but the experience taught me a huge lesson that we immediately put into action at Bisnow: news leaders must have a big seat at the table when it comes to marrying revenue goals with news-gathering goals. 

They can coexist, they should coexist, and sales and editorial teams must pursue their respective goals in lockstep — and you can do that while maintaining a separation between church and state. We’ve built that culture at Bisnow and that is one of the reasons why our business has been so successful over the years — as our news publication’s reputation and relevance has grown, so has our overall revenue. Our sales team is second to none and they are why our newsroom has the freedom to hold this powerful industry accountable and to conduct penetrating, thought-provoking investigative work without guardrails. And in turn, that type of fearless journalism has helped our sales team to grow our business. I am very proud of that.

Dawn: You spent several years as a consultant. What advice would you offer someone thinking of going that route? 

Mark: I did it at first as a means to survive the Great Recession, but it ended up becoming the equivalent of a master’s degree for me. Most of my consulting work had nothing to do with journalism and forced me to learn things like business operations, marketing, magazine and book publishing, graphic design, e-commerce, web design and development, as well as pharmaceutical copywriting and ghostwriting for CEOs. I learned how to do these things creatively, but more importantly, I also learned how to pursue this work from a business perspective — specifically, to help my clients make money. It was stressful for me because I was constantly going from one client to the next — pitching 10 prospects and maybe only landing one — and doing the work and then hoping they would pay me (some never did and you never forget that).

I have a deep respect for the gig economy and what freelancers and consultants go through because I lived that life for years. Ultimately, after a few years, it led me back to the place I wanted to be most, which was the newsroom. I am a better leader and a smarter businessperson because of this experience. My advice if you’re just getting started? Quickly land as many clients as possible, regardless of pay, and build on it because clients lead to more clients (and more money) — and plan ahead for taxes.

Dawn: What made you decide to get into journalism in the first place? 

Mark: I caught the bug at an early age. My parents were big readers. My mom had subscriptions to all of the major news magazines of the day — Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Rolling Stone Magazine and a whole bunch more. We fought over who got which issues first and we devoured them. We also talked politics and news at the dinner table every night — and we didn’t kill each other! My dad was a zealous daily consumer of our hometown newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. So, from the news magazines I dreamed of traveling the world as a correspondent to chronicle current events and from The Times-Picayune, I started to follow the news and the bylines like a kid might obsessively follow a baseball team and its players. New Orleans is an amazing news town and I idolized the reporters and editors who worked there. And that passion for journalism continues to this day. As far as I am concerned, there is no better vocation than this one. I am lucky to have been able to do this work for more than 20 years at this point — and I was lucky to have found journalism at such a young age.  

Dawn: If you could pick any other career, what would it be? 

Mark: I am fortunate because I am doing what I always wanted to do, but I think sports management could be exciting. I am a massive New Orleans Saints fan, so give me a shot at GM.

Dawn: What advice would you give to someone looking to be a journalist? 

Mark: Start as early in your life as possible and get to know one. Write a cold email or make a cold call to a reporter or editor you admire and tell them you want to know more about their work. Most journalists I know will jump at the chance — I do it all the time, so feel free to email me. Also, if you’re in school and it has a student newspaper, join it. I did that in high school and college and it made my career and it deeply enriched my life. I found my life’s passion, but I also forged deep, lifelong friendships.

Dawn Wotapka is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who loves to read and write. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children. She is a slow runner and an avid Peloton user. To submit tips for her Media Movers column,  connect with Dawn on LinkedIn.