Business Insider added 130 newsroom jobs in 2020

Lukas I. Alpert of The Wall Street Journal writes about Business Insider’s pandemic strategy, which essentially was not to change anything.

Alpert writes, “Insider Inc., the parent of Business Insider and related properties, roared back in the second half of the year, posting 30% revenue growth for 2020 while turning a profit, Mr. Blodget said. A person familiar with the matter said the company generated over $150 million in revenue.

“Business Insider, which blends business news and pop culture coverage, benefited from the combination of a burgeoning subscription business and its reliance on a form of automated advertising that held up relatively well in the pandemic, but which many peers have drifted away from.

“Insider Inc. was able to continue a hiring spree despite the turmoil. The company added 200 employees in 2020, 130 of them in the newsroom, and now employs just over 500 people in all.

“‘We feel extremely fortunate to have come through it the way we have,’ Mr. Blodget said in an interview.”

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.