Categories: OLD Media Moves

Breakingviews.com has straightforward Dow Jones coverage

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman writes Wednesday that the coverage of the potential sale of Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, in BreakingViews.com has been particularly balanced.

Dow Jones has a minority interest in the web site, and the Journal runs a column from the web site.

Friedman wrote, “It wouldn’t surprise me if breakingviews’ approach catches on. Its stories run about 300 words, with no extra frills. With the U.S. newspaper industry struggling, editors are eager for ways to cut costs while continuing to serve readers. Too often newspapers rehash the kind of business news that their customers can already get via the Web or cable.

“The breakingviews style of providing analysis of major issues can work for newspapers as well. They could leave the earnings stories and the like to the wire services and tell readers what’s really going on.

“About 500 financial institutions subscribe to breakingviews — reaching about 20,000 professionals in banks, hedge funds, private-equity outfits and law firms. Subscribers pay anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 per year. In addition, newspapers around the world publish breakingviews’ work, with a potential reach of millions more readers.”

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.