Embracing a New Paradigm

By Chris Roush
Feb. 13, 2008

Crain’s Chicago Business hires a former TV producer so it can start putting top-notch video on its Web site. The Miami Herald launches a radio program from its business desk that is also streamed from its Web site. And business magazine Fast Company overhauls its Web site to allow readers to blog and post comments.

All three publications have seen the future of business journalism. They understand it’s no longer only about what you can print, and they realize that the information that attracts readers doesn’t necessarily come from journalists.

Hey, it’s not something I’m comfortable with personally, but I’m learning to adapt. You’re reading this blog, aren’t you? Three years ago, I would have never thought I’d be blogging. Three years ago, I probably wasn’t real clear on what a blog was.

One of the biggest problems I see in business journalism today is that a lot of the people running business news publications, or business news desks, are stuck in the old paradigm where news product comes out when we say it comes out and where we deliver business news that we think is important to our readers.

Smart media organizations have learned that this model no longer works. We have to provide business news when our readers – and listeners and viewers – want it, and we have to listen more to our consumers about what information they want.

The business news outlets that will survive and thrive are the ones that realize they no longer have the expertise to do what their consumers want, so they go outside of the paradigm to find people who can help them. That can be TV producers or bloggers or Web designers.

And it means relying on our readers more. Listen, I’m not saying that we have to do everything that our readers want. If business publications did that, then there wouldn’t be great journalism, I strongly believe. But I do think that the readers can teach us a few tricks, like the subtle nuances of the companies they work for that we don’t understand.

I’m particularly intrigued by Fast Company, which is allowing its readers to blog on its Web site. Will the content from the Fast Company business journalists have more readers than the content from the readers on the Web site? That’s a question that sends shivers down the backs of many business journalists, I bet.

But it’s a question that needs answering. If the answer is the readers are actually producing content that attracts more eyeballs, then business journalism has a lot more paradigm shifting to accomplish than it realizes.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism