Categories: OLD Media Moves

Biz columnist asks for help in reinventing himself

Tom Walsh, the business columnist for the Detroit Free Press, asks for help from his readers in terms of reinventing what he does.

Walsh writes, “We in the press tend to be fond of yapping at each other and running from app to app to spew our thoughts in a hundred directions. But we too seldom ask, ‘What do you want from us?’

“Is what I do useful to you? Entertaining? A local CEO tells me if something is not useful it better be entertaining, or it’s useless — and I buy that.

“Should I spout more opinion or less? Introduce you to more smart, eclectic characters? Or deliver more facts and links to help you draw your own conclusions? Should I write less often and more deeply? Or should I be there for you with something fresh every day?

“There’s some risk, of course, in making the requests. Some of you might suggest a brain transplant. Or even that I retire, which would terrify my wife — who accepts that she signed up for better or worse, but not for lunch everyday.”

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.

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