North Carolina paper changes focus of Sunday section to small business

The Asheville Citizen-Times, a Gannett paper in western North Carolina, has changed its Sunday business section to one that focuses on small business and is called “Ideas.”

Publisher Randy Hammer writes, “For the past six months, reporter Dale Neal and others have focused on small businesses and entrepreneurs, writing stories about people like David LeBouttillier, who moved here from Charleston, S.C., to open Storm Rhum Bar and Bistro, as well as Joe and Annie Ritota, owners of Annie’s Naturally Bakery, who grew a business from a single oven in a garage into a company that now employs 42 people.

“These have not been your traditional business stories. They have been stories about people’s dreams and hopes and ambitions. In addition to our story on TEDx, you also will find on the front of today’s Ideas section a column by Dale that describes what these people have taught him.

”I’ve learned one thing,’ writes Dale. ‘I don’t envy entrepreneurs. It’s hard work building a business from scratch.’

“Our hope is that Ideas will be a section that not only profiles these entrepreneurs who Dale and others will write about in the coming weeks and months, but also a section that celebrates them.”

Read more here.