Examining Bloomberg Businessweek’s overhaul

Hal Morris, writing on his GrumpyEditor.com blog, examines the efforts to remake Businessweek magazine since it was acquired by Bloomberg in late 2009.

Morris writes, “Most noteworthy was getting the fatherly 80-year-old business weekly to appeal to a much younger readership via content and layouts.

“In the July 16-22 issue, for example, Bloomberg Businessweek splashed an inordinate 47 snapshots of Andrew Mason into a six-page spread on the Groupon CEO.

“Actually, with another image on the contents page, make that 48 shots of the ‘merry prankster,’ as the magazine labeled its subject. One page alone featured 14 Mason photos of assorted sizes.

“Also interesting in the current issue was the sole art plunked in a two-page Olympics story: a dog with an inverted bucket reading ‘The Olympics’ placed over its head.”

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.