Handling the new biz journalism

Yvette Kantrow, the executive editor of The Deal, examines how some publications are trying to cover the world of business and finance in the 21st century and decides that The Huffington Post and The Atlantic have it figured out better than Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Kantrow writes, “The Huffington Post, for one, has signed on telegenic econoblogger Simon Johnson as the site’s contributing business editor. Over at Atlantic Media, political journalist Michael Kinsley has decided that he will not edit the company’s new business news site as planned. And finally, the folks at Bloomberg LP have filled out the top of BusinessWeek’s masthead by hiring Eric Pooley, an old Time Inc. hand, and Hugo Lindgren, who hails from New York magazine, a glossy chronicler of the urban Zeitgeist.

“So what do all these rather disparate moves mean? Let’s start with Johnson’s arrangement with HuffPo, a deal that sounds as if it was hatched while sipping hot toddies at Davos. Johnson and Arianna Huffington are perfect for each other. Both have grasped the importance of multiplatform ubiquity in today’s media world — both blog, pen op-eds, appear on TV and radio, write books — and both have attained the kind of fame that goes along with that. Huffington, who traffics in more general-interest politics, is more famous. But Johnson, who if not quite a celebrity is at least a “personality,” has managed to achieve his status despite being an economist — a profession that didn’t exactly cover itself in glory in recent years. The fact that this former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund (and current MIT Sloan School of Management professor) has both boyish blond hair and a British accent probably hasn’t hurt his ascent.”

Later, she writes, “Atlantic Media’s announcement a few months ago that Kinsley would edit its new business news site also seemed to illustrate the politicization of financial journalism. So we read with interest recently that Kinsley had backed out of the project because he’s ‘not obsessed with business’ and, after some soul-searching, decided he had no desire to become so.

“At a time when style and politics often trump facts and substance (hello, Matt Taibbi), it’s notable to see someone stand up for actual knowledge. Kinsley is an experienced editor who undoubtedly could have constructed a highly readable and credible business site but, refreshingly, wanted to go deeper than that. Atlantic now says it will look for an editor with a more traditional business journalism background.”

Read more here.