How Shontell is remaking Fortune

Alyson Shontell

Jim Edwards of the Press Gazette profiles Fortune editor in chief Alyson Shontell and how she has remade the publication.

Edwards writes, “Traffic to Fortune.com has increased by six times since the last quarter of 2021, the company claims. Although Shontell declined to put specific numbers on that, Similarweb puts it at 32 million visits per month.

“Meanwhile the magazine has a global circulation of 2.3 million, with multiple international editions. Despite the drive to digital, Shontell said: ‘I think print is an important differentiator. In a really chaotic world where you can’t even remember what you read on Twitter an hour ago, a magazine is an amazing curation tool with premium content, that’s really trustworthy and really high quality.’

“Historically owned by Time Inc, Fortune was bought by Meredith in January of 2018 and then sold on to Thai billionaire Chatchaval Jiaravanon in November that year for $150m in cash.

“At the time of the 2018 sale, reported revenue was $100m with earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $10m.”

Read more here.

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.