Former publisher: Why I started a business journal

Joy Allen, who started the Greater Wilmington Business Journal in North Carolina in 2000 and was its publisher until selling it in 2007, writes about her decision.

Allen writes, “When I started my business in 1995, the World Wide Web was in its infancy, so I learned to write HTML code and added website design to my services. In other words, I seized an opportunity to fill a need.

“By 1999, I had recognized another need. In-depth news coverage of our burgeoning business community did not exist, nor was there a vehicle for targeted business-to-business advertising.

“I took the plunge into that void by launching the Greater Wilmington Business Journal in 2000.

“I have shared these details of my personal story as a Wilmington businesswoman because my experience is by no means unique. As the publisher of the Business Journal, I met a multitude of people who, like me, gravitated to Wilmington because of what it had to offer and also what it was lacking.”

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.