Categories: OLD Media Moves

Freedom CEO: Spice up biz coverage

Scott Flanders, the CEO of Freedom Communications, which owns the Orange County Register and other papers across the country, suggested that business sections add more flair to their coverage.

Flanders was speaking at the annual SocietyÂ of American Business Editors and Writers conference earlier this week. His comments were posted by Colin Stewart of the Register staff on its Morning Eye blog.

Stewart wrote, “Flanders told a gathering of business editors and writers Tuesday that, to attract readers, business sections should include pieces modeled after the New York Post’s celebrity-focused Page 6.

“‘That means we’re going to have to be more prepared to write about rumor, conjecture and speculation, if we’re going to lure in and be a must-read,’ he said.

“Below are excerpts from his remarks to the annual meeting of the Society of Business Editors and Writers in Anaheim:

â€¢ “The audience that business journalism attracts, demographically, is at the highest possible level along all the dimensions â€“ of household income, retail spending, education, you name it. The challenge that we face is that national business news is largely commoditized. … We no longer can rely on the stock tables to draw in a business executive in the morning to see how his portfolio performed. We have to look for something else. …”

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.