Categories: OLD Media Moves

Forbes wants to do more data visualization

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about how the business magazine wants to do more data visualization.

Dvorkin writes, “B.C. Forbes had a vision that his son, Malcolm, and his sons stuck with. In his own way, Malcolm advanced his father’s idea as boldly as Halberstam’s chosen moguls pushed their own beliefs. B.C.’s original idea was straight forward: people want to be successful. Since 1917, FORBES has chronicled human aspiration — the good, the bad and the ugly. It was a solid vision then and remains more so today. Four years ago, we changed the way we carried out that vision. Digital publishing and the advertising market demanded media companies do something. So, we tied that 100-year-old vision to a new economic model — entrepreneurial journalism and native advertising — and changed a century of antiquated newsroom processes, or methods.

“Challenges still loom. That’s why I pay so much attention to news startups. In fact, FORBES is looking to do more data visualization a la FiveThirtyEight. We’re learning from Circa and Yahoo Digest, a mobile content aggregation app developed by Summly’s founder. If statups and legacy media are honest with one another, each is pursuing what the other got to first. At Newsweek in the 80s, we talked about how our “explanatory journalism” would protect us against TV’s simplistic sound bytes. From birth, USA Today (I briefly worked for its syndicated television show) touted its graphics, some as in-depth as any of today’s data visualization masterpieces. I’ve watched as both traditional media and startups draft off the individual branding and native ad concepts FORBES implemented in 2010. We’ve riffed off of what others did 100 years ago, including B.C.’s one-time boss, William Randolph Hearst, who collected celebrity experts.”

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.

View Comments

    Recent Posts

    Is this the end of CoinDesk as we know it?

    Former CoinDesk editorial staffer Michael McSweeney writes about the recent happenings at the cryptocurrency news site, where…

    9 hours ago

    LinkedIn finance editor Singh departs

    Manas Pratap Singh, finance editor for LinkedIn News Europe, has left for a new opportunity…

    2 days ago

    Washington Post announces start of third newsroom

    Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following on Friday: Dear All, Over the last…

    2 days ago

    FT hires Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels

    The Financial Times has hired Barbara Moens to cover competition and tech in Brussels. She will start…

    2 days ago

    Deputy tech editor Haselton departs CNBC for The Verge

    CNBC.com deputy technology editor Todd Haselton is leaving the news organization for a job at The Verge.…

    3 days ago

    “Power Lunch” co-anchor Tyler Mathisen is leaving CNBC

    Note from CNBC Business News senior vice president Dan Colarusso: After more than 27 years…

    3 days ago