Changes made to Columbian biz section

Craig Brown, the editor of The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington, writes about changes the paper has made in its business section.

Brown writes, “The biggest changes are to our business section. Years ago, we had a columnist every day, but that dwindled, and we didn’t really do much about finding replacements. Then, earlier this year, two of our columnists died. Kenneth Harney’s ‘Nation’s Housing’ appeared on Mondays, and Malcolm Berko’s ‘Taking Stock’ usually ran twice a week, including on Sundays.

“We replaced Berko’s Sunday column with Helaine Olen’s ‘Life & Money with Helaine,’ which is also distributed by Berko’s syndicate. Her softer, Dear Abby-style approach hasn’t been a hit with Berko’s red-meat readers. I like the column, but I have gotten several complaints. So we moved her to the Life section on Saturdays, where we think she will be a better fit.

“I haven’t found another Berko, who regularly offered a few stock picks wrapped up with a lot of sharp opinions about companies and politics. So our new Sunday column is from Tribune Media Services and focuses on financial topics relevant to retirees. On Mondays, we’ll focus on real estate. We have a couple of columns to choose from here, so it will be a ‘best of’ situation, at least for a while.”

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.