Categories: OLD Media Moves

BusinessWeek needs to prove itself to readers

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman, himself a former BusinessWeek writer, comments Monday that the magazine needs to prove itself to readers again to be relevant.

Friedman wrote, “If BusinessWeek published this column, I’m afraid that its cover blurb might say, in typical BW-speak, ‘Would anyone miss this magazine if it went away?’

“Yes, I’m joking — sort of.

“Like other weeklies, BW has to dispel the notion that it’s an anachronism. News junkies can get their fixes faster (and sometimes more comprehensively) on the Web.

“It’s hard to remember the last time I heard people buzzing about anything they read in BusinessWeek, either in the magazine or online. People can’t work up any kind of reaction.”

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.