Can Forbes thrive under its new owners?

Rich Jaroslovsky writes for The Observer about the pending sale of Forbes to a group of investors fronted by Austin Russell, the CEO of Luminar Technologies.

Jaroslovsky writes, “Forbes certainly isn’t the only hallowed journalistic title to have traded its reputation for its survival. What remains to be seen is what its new owner, Russell, has in mind for it. In some cases, billionaire ownership has provided the resources for newsrooms to maintain quality—as has been the case with Jeff Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post—or even to improve it: Despite reports of ongoing tensions with owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, today’s Los Angeles Times is unquestionably a better product than the hollowed-out shell he acquired five years ago, only months after DVorkin was ousted as its editor in chief.

“But the kindness of well-heeled strangers only goes so far—and seems a particularly thin reed for Forbes. Having already sold its soul once, there seems little incentive for its new owners to try to buy it back.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.