Forbes: Can't charge for daily, online business journalism

Forbes editor in chief Steve Forbes was profiled by Stephen Foley of the Independent newspaper in London, who came away from the interview believing that Forbes magazine will thrive.

Foley writes, “Having merged the online and magazine staff over the past year, Forbes.com is now experimenting with potential ways to make money from online content. Mr Forbes is sceptical about charging for the day-by-day business journalism (‘it’s like bread and butter in a restaurant, you don’t expect to be charged for it’) but he has had some success with special sponsored events, online conferences for groups such as financial advisers, which might attract just 1,500 ‘attendees’, but for whom advertisers are willing to pay a big premium.

“Communities of readers and reporters will form around media brands, he predicts. Specialist publications will be able to charge a narrow audience for their work. Longer, investigative work will be funded largely by charitable foundations or think-tanks. Magazines in physical form will endure, more certainly than newspapers, because they offer an at-your-leisure read, he says. And the Forbes brand, of course, is strong.

“It is hard to think of another publication so tied together with the identity and philosophy of one family and, these days, one man. Steve Forbes initially set up his own magazine, Business Today, as a student at Princeton University, but he was preordained to run the family heirloom and has been Forbes editor-in-chief since his father’s death in 1990.”

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