Lauding the work of business weeklies

Eric Starkman of Deadline Detroit writes about how two business weeklies are successful while the metro dailies in Detroit struggle.

Starkman writes, “The San Francisco Business Times, a local business publication, is understood to be incredibly profitable and doing a brisk business converting readers who click on stories that require a subscription. The SFBT focuses heavily on the financial services, real estate, and tourism industries and its weekly print edition is chock full of ads. Mark Calvey, its banking reporter, has covered his beat for more than two decades and knows Wells Fargo and Bank of America better than any journalist. The SFBT is running a $103 special for a one-year subscription, more than my annual subscription to The New York Times.

“Detroiters recently were reminded of the importance of having a locally owned newspaper.

“Crain’s Detroit Business filed the Freedom of Information Act request that uncovered the sweetheart deal Detroit and Michigan offered Amazon to locate its second headquarters here. There was a time when reporters at the Freep and The News would have beaten each other up to be first to report that information.”

Read more here.