Why Insider’s Turner was attracted to the news organization

Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business news coverage at Insider, spoke with Russell Sherman of Press Profiles about his career.

Turner said that the business news operation is about 200 staffers, or about one third of the Insider editorial staff.

He joined what was then called Business Insider in 2015 after meeting with co-founder Henry Blodget. When he moved to the United States from Great Britain, his goal was to work for The Wall Street Journal.

“It was going to take years and years for me to move up” there, said Turner. “I wanted to be somewhere smaller, more entrepreneurial” where he could have a bigger impact.

Turner argued that Insider’s success is due to the fact that it pays close attention to what readers are interested in. “This is by far the most reader-centric newsroom I have ever been in,” he said.

Insider uses internal tools and other measures to examine what readers want and makes it available to every staffer.

To listen, go 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.