Brad Kane, the editor of the Worcester Business Journal in Massachusetts, writes about the popularity of stories about restaurants and real estate.
Kane writes, “Yet, in June when I was attending a business journalism conference in Canada, the group publisher for the large media company Crain’s detailed the types of stories that drove traffic and subscriptions to its publications in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York. Somewhat obviously, real estate stories are at the top. Real estate is the core beat of most business journals, including WBJ. If you know real estate, you know the economy.
“Surprisingly, restaurant stories also were among the top drivers of core audience growth for Crain’s. The stories aren’t just about openings and closings either, but genuine business stories about industry trends, food costs, workforce problems, and the other challenges restaurants face. The second I heard this, I understood: Restaurants have a natural appeal for consumers, which drives traffic, but those stories told smartly through a business lens can attract the more business readers comprising the core of WBJ’s audience.
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