The job market in the news industry is, as most media professionals know, having a moment. Hundreds of reporters have lost their jobs in just the first half of 2024, many of whom worked at outlets like Vice, CNN, The Messenger and the Wall Street Journal. On top of that, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 3 percent decline in employment for news analysts, reporters and journalists from 2022 to 2032. And there’s no mystery behind this moment: it’s largely due to the sustained fall in ad revenue at traditional publications since the dawn of social media and online ads.
But there’s an often-overlooked career option for business journalists, where ad revenue and jobs remain plentiful: trade journalism.
The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) defines trade publications as “print or digital periodicals, email newsletters, or a combination of these mediums, which focus primarily on the professional or occupational interests of business-to-business readers.”
Rob Wells, an associate professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and an expert on trade media, says that the trade press outshines the newspaper industry in terms of revenue.
Citing the consulting firm Outsell Inc., Wells writes in a chapter of “The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism” that “business-to-business publications brought in an estimated $37 billion in revenue in 2021, of which 84 percent represented print and digital advertising revenue.”
As for the newspaper industry, recent data from Pew Research Center’s “State of the News Media” project paints a different picture.
“The total estimated advertising revenue for the newspaper industry in 2022 was $9.8 billion, based on the Center’s analysis of financial statements for publicly traded newspaper companies. This is down 5% from 2021, a slight drop,” a fact sheet published by the Center says. “Total estimated circulation revenue was $11.6 billion, compared with $11.5 billion in 2020.”
Trade outlets publish business trend stories, profiles, and other articles specific to an industry sector. And those sectors run the gamut from banking to law to advertising to supply chain and others.
If a career in trade journalism sounds interesting and exciting, here are some insights from trade publication editors and reporters to get your foot in the door.
Writing for industry professionals
The main difference between traditional business reporting and trade journalism is the audience. The former consists of everyday people, the latter insiders who have more specialized knowledge of a certain business area.
Wells says the industries trade journalists cover can be thought of as business communities.
“I think it’s important to kind of view it as community journalism because it gives people a frame of reference and kind of demystifies what’s happening in the trade press,” he says. “It also speaks to the close relationship that journalists covering a trade beat will have with the companies they’re covering and the executives.”
No matter what industry a trade reporter or editor covers, their objective stays the same: to provide information to readers that will help them do their jobs better.
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Healthcare Design and Environments for Aging, separate magazines that cover the architecture, planning, and design of healthcare spaces and senior living facilities, respectively. She says it’s important to go beyond basic facts of the business.
“What we’re looking for is to really drill down and figure out what’s new, what in the industry is impacting how [professionals] do their jobs, whether it’s the planning or the material sourcing or things like that,” she says. In that vein, trade journalists don’t just report that something happened. They delve into why and how “because that’s what our readers want to know so that they can read an article, glean some information and then apply it to their next project.”
But just because you’re writing with professionals in mind, it doesn’t mean you can assume readers know everything.
“We’re serving industry professionals who might be new to the industry – maybe recent graduates of architecture or design schools that are just starting out at firms – as well as veteran industry leaders who have been doing this work for decades,” DiNardo says. “So, it’s kind of a balance of making sure that we have different types of content – kind of that advanced as well as that kind of beginner, ‘101’ content.”
Reporters and editors also make sure that the headline and story copy achieve the same balance, says Heidi Patalano, who is editor-in-chief of National Mortgage News.
“We still have to consider things getting picked up by search,” she says. “We still want to have things get attention from mainstream audiences as well, so headlines have to be comprehensible to the general population.”
Entering the profession
Getting work in the trade press requires time and effort in familiarizing yourself with the industries you’d like to cover.
Before his current job as a reporter for Financial Planning, Rob Burgess worked for The Indiana Lawyer. He says that his interest in the law and the amount of time spent reading about it prepared him well.
“I guess I kind of had a broad understanding of some of the issues,” he says, referring to when he previously wrote columns about major U.S. Supreme Court rulings for a local newspaper. “But it really just came down to figuring out what everyone else was reading, and reading as widely and as much as I could.” He also recommends connecting with other people who have ample knowledge of the industry.
Even without a background in the exact industry a trade publication covers, a quality portfolio or expertise in something related to a beat can help.
Sandra Beckwith, a freelance writer whose bylines appear in several trade publications including CFO.com and Inbound Logistics, says she has used her own business knowledge and experience working as a publicist to get assignments.
“That kind of shows you how you can get into these trade magazines without having their specific subject matter knowledge,” she says. “You just have to bring to them some other knowledge that’s valuable, and you have to be a really good writer.”
Whether you’re looking for a staff position or writing on a freelance basis, you can take a look at associations like ASBPE and the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) to make valuable connections with business-to-business journalists and editors.
Is trade journalism right for you?
Wells says a career in the trade press is best suited for “someone who is really interested in the nuts and bolts about how businesses work, someone who has an aptitude for following technical material, and someone who likes to dig in and do some in-depth reporting.”
It might also be a good fit for those who want to work in a more collegial environment.
“I just know anecdotally from my interviews with trade journalists [that] they find this can be a very satisfying career, that the workplaces don’t have this grinding intensity that a general newsroom might have – like Dow Jones or so forth – and might be a little bit more family friendly,” Wells says.
Beckwith shares this sentiment, adding that it’s easier for her ideas to get accepted in a market that’s less competitive than mainstream journalism. She also finds the editorial process is more streamlined.
“You have fewer layers to go through in terms of staff,” she says. “And consumer magazines, many times, they seem to edit by committee, and when I write for trade magazines, it’s one editor who’s giving me input if any changes are needed.”
It’s also a chance to develop a different perspective on how businesses and the economy work.
“What I enjoyed about trade publications and real estate was that it was more of an intellectual challenge to try to understand these parts of the market and also that it really gives you a great perspective into the economy and what is going to drive the mainstream news eventually,” National Mortgage News’ Patalano says.
Even though trade journalists do need to specialize to some degree, Burgess says that it never hurts to explore and see what you’re interested in before jumping into something specific.
His suggestion: “Keep your eyes open, keep your interests wide, and just see where it takes you.”
