Breaking Business News Online Helps to Win Readership

By Chris Roush
August 7, 2006

I'm surprised lately at how many newspaper business sections I look at online and still see, particularly late in the afternoon, headlines and stories from that morning's paper instead of breaking news.

In this time of massive change in how news and information is presented to consumers, it's vital for business reporters and editors at daily newspapers, television stations and other outlets to begin thinking about speeding up the delivery process.

Here is what I'm talking about:

In the old days of business journalism - way back in the late 1990s - the typical business news desk ran pretty much the same way across the country. Reporters wrote stories in the afternoon or early evening, and then editors edited them, and then they were sent to a layout person to put them on a page for tomorrow's paper.

In some cases, they were also sent to a computer geek, who posted the stories onto what now passes as a crude online page of the newspaper.

That process, however, isn't going to cut it any more if business sections hope to maintain readers and viewers.

The smart business news departments are having their reporters write breaking news stories as soon as it happens, almost like a wire service. The story is then posted online. It may not be a full story, or the story that appears in the next day's newspaper. But the story serves to tell the newspaper's readers who go to its Internet site what's happening that day, and it conveys to those Internet readers that the paper's business section is on top of breaking news.

There's not a lot of change that needs to be made to accomplish such a strategy. Yes, reporters will need to write earlier and faster, and an editor might need to come into the office earlier, but in the end this also allows the business desk to get stories finished quicker than usual.

Stop resisting the Internet and the changes that it's forcing on the newspaper business. Business desks that refuse to cater to Internet readers might find more than their stock listings being cut.