How a business journal has changed over 40 years

Dirk DeYoung, editor in chief of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, writes about how the American City Business Journals publication has changed since it was founded 40 years ago, and since he joined it 28 years ago.

DeYoung writes, “So much has changed since, for myself — learning management on the fly is never boring — the paper, and the world at large.

“Soon after I began as editor, we began figuring out how to incorporate this innovation called the internet into our newsroom, which to that point had solely focused on the weekly newspaper. Slowly but surely we changed everything: Now the Business Journal is a highly successful, digital-first media outlet that publishes two well-read daily newsletters with roughly 29,000 subscribers each.

“We haven’t left the weekly edition behind. Many of our 15,700 paid subscribers tell us they still appreciate that format, either in print or digital. But breaking local business news online is our primary focus, and I’m proud to say we’re very good at that, regularly leaving our competition in the dust.

“Then Covid-19 changed everything, again.

“We learned to work from home, leaving our office behind for more than a year. And we had to quickly pivot to cover many of those same disruptions being felt by businesses in the Twin Cities, from remote work to closures of restaurants, stores, hotels and event centers. We’re still writing about the reverberations, especially the shifts in how we work and how that’s affecting the office market and downtowns. While our newsroom is back in the office, it’s only for two to three days a week.”

Read more here.