How the St. Louis Business Journal got its start

Erik Siemers, the editor of the St. Louis Business Journal, writes about the paper’s founding on its 40th anniversary.

Siemers writes, “Even for all that effort, the expectations, at least from Vittert’s perspective, were minimal. All he wanted was to produce something he’d like to read, and hoped a few of his friends might join him. ‘There was no big plan,’ he said. ‘Not even the remotest thought of what this would end up turning into.’

“Vittert and Newman would eventually amass a portfolio of seven local Business Journals, which they sold in 1986 to American City Business Journals, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company that publishes journals in more than 40 markets nationwide.

“Among them is the St. Louis Business Journal, which just last week announced yet another impressive haul from the annual Missouri Press Foundation awards, including the coveted award for general excellence in our size category.

“And we’ve evolved from being just a newspaper: More than 7,300 people per year attend St. Louis Business Journal events, a reflection of our evolution into a convener of this region’s business community.”

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.