A small business news niche within the New York Times

James Breiner, who teaches business journalism at Tsinghua University, writes about Loren Feldman, the small business editor at the New York Times, who writes a blog called “You’re the Boss: The Art of Running a
Small Business” that appears in the small business  section of the Times’s website.

Breiner writes, “Feldman started the blog from scratch in 2009. He had considerable experience with the small business niche as an editor of Inc. magazine and then web editor for Inc.com and FastCompany.com.

“It was at Inc. that he met Jay Goltz, a Chicago-based entrepreneur profiled in the magazine. Goltz launched into a critique of the existing small business publications. He thought they weren’t focused on the nuts and bolts that help business owners solve the problems they face every day. Goltz then proceeded to give Feldman dozens of story ideas that would be more relevant.

“Most entrepreneurs know how to do two or three things really well, Feldman says, but they might have no idea how to pick a law firm or how to run a payroll system or how to run a marketing campaign in social media.

“So when he came to the Times, Feldman decided that most of the You’re the Boss’s bloggers would be business owners themselves describing their own problems and how they tried to solve them. They would chronicle their mistakes and ask for help. He started with four and now has 13. (The bloggers are paid for their work)”

Read more here.