Tag Archives: American City Business Journals
ACBJ’s Grind to join Wall Street Journal
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Francesco Guerrera, the editor of the Money & Investing section of The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following staff announcement on Thursday:
We’re pleased to announce that Kirsten Grind will be joining the Journal to cover asset-management firms and personal finance for the Money & Investing section. We plan to ramp up our coverage of BlackRock, Pimco, Vanguard, Fidelity and the industry’s other big players significantly in the coming months. Part Wall Street, part investing, the beat is teeming with interesting, well-paid subjects whose successes and failures affect the retirement plans and pensions of tens of millions of people around the world.
Kirsten is perfect for the job. She joins us from American City Business Journals, where, most famously, she anchored the Puget Sound Business Journal’s coverage of Washington Mutual—work for which she was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Loeb Award in 2010. Most impressively, Kirsten hadn’t written a single banking story before diving into that beat. Earlier in her career, Kirsten worked for the Seattle Times and the Coloradoan in Fort Collins, Colo.
In other staffing news, Joe Light has joined the personal-finance team to write about investing. Since March 2010, Joe has been a key member of the careers group, most recently helping to spearhead the excellent Generation Jobless series. Joe has also written about outsourcing job hunts to India, people whose names are eerily well-suited for their professions, and young adults dropping out of the labor force. Before coming to the Journal, Joe worked for Money magazine, covering investing and real estate.
Please join us in welcoming Kirsten to the Journal (she starts on Jan. 17), and in wishing Joe well in his important new assignment. Both will report to Rob Hunter.
Atlanta biz weekly makes staff changes
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
David Allison, the editor of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, sent out the following announcement to the staff about changes:
I’m sorry to announce that after 12 great years at the ABC, Julie Bryant is leaving us to join the Metro Atlanta Chamber in its communications department. Julie has made tremendous contributions as a reporter and editor, and now she’ll be working to help the city’s business community continue to grow.
Julie’s move will trigger a number of others.
Moving into the managing editor position is Jessica Saunders, who’s done great work as industry focus editor.
Moving into the industry focus editor position is Lisa Schoolcraft, who will now oversee the Strategies section and some focus sections with Jessica.
Doug Sams is being promoted to real estate editor. While he will continue reporting on commercial real estate, he will now take over oversight of our monthly CRE sections, helping to bolster the Focus Section team of Jessica and Lisa.
Lastly, we’ve begun an immediate search for a new reporter to cover hospitality and retail and hope to hire someone soon.
Join me in thanking Julie for her long service to the ABC and congratulate Jessica, Lisa and Doug on their new roles.
Bizjournals.com redesign aimed at showcasing the best of local papers
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
The overhaul of bizjournals.com, a home page of content produced by American City Business Journals, is designed to drive more traffic to the pages of the company’s 40 business newspapers, said an ACBJ executive on Friday.
The old design did not “do a good job of showcasing the best content we have,” said Jason Silverstein, the senior vice president of product development at Charlotte-based ACBJ. “We wanted an opportunity to revisit and have an editorial focus highlighting some of our best stuff.”
The redesign is the site’s first since 2009 and the first done totally in-house, said Silverstein, who previously was vice president of interactive media at the Charlotte Observer and also spent seven years at Yahoo.
However, it has not been decided that the new design, which uses larger photos and bolder headlines, will be used by the company’s local papers.
“My philosophy from a product and a technology standpoint is that we like to do some things artistic and some things scientific,” said Silverstein in a telephone interview. “If this page design does what it’s supposed to do, which is to get more page views, perhaps it will.”
An editorial and production staff called the national content team picks the stories for the home page each day, working with the local papers to determine the best content from the company’s 600 business journalists.
“At bizjournals.com, we weren’t using the domain the best way that we could,” said Silverstein. “I spent seven years at Yahoo, and one of the most important things was being on the Yahoo home page. That’s what we’re trying to emulate. It’s not about bizjournals.com per se, it’s about giving visibility to what the markets are doing.”
Bizjournals.com unveils national page redesign
by Chris Roush
Bizjournals.com, which is the home page for business news for American City Business Journals, rolled out a redesign Thursday afternoon that updates its look.
Here is the new appearance, which emphasizes photos much more than the old layout:
Here is the old design:
Baltimore Biz Journal launches blog/newsletter on real estate
by Chris Roush
Joanna Sullivan, the editor of the Baltimore Business Journal, writes about how the weekly business newspaper is starting a blog and a daily e-mail newsletter devoted to commercial real estate.
Sullivan writes, “That’s the reason the Baltimore Business Journal has always focused heavily on commercial real estate online and in print. It’s been our top beat — journalism lingo for the industry a reporter covers — since the Business Journal set up shop at 117 Water St. back in 1983.
“Like many businesses around town, we’ve moved since then. We’re now in one of Pratt Street’s hottest addresses — 1 E. Pratt St. It’s soon going to be the headquarters of PNC Bank’s local operations, bringing much-needed heft to this part of downtown.
“We broke that story about PNC, just one of hundreds of real estate stories we’ve broken over the years. And we’re not stopping there.
“But now we’re getting ready to take this beat well into the 21st century with the launch of our new free BBJ RE blog and daily newsletter. We’re branding all of our real estate products under the BBJ RE name. We look forward to many BBJ RE stories in print and online. And don’t miss our BBJ RE Broker Bash we have planned in the spring.
“The BBJ RE daily newsletter will make sure our loyal readers aren’t missing out on the important real estate news and market intelligence we’ve made our name on.”
Read more here.
ACBJ papers receive awards
by Chris Roush
American City Business Journals, the Charlotte-based company that runs 40 business weeklies across the country, named its top journalists and journalism at a banquet Wednesday night.
Among the winners were the Atlanta Business Chronicle in the general excellence category and Joe Brancatelli, who covers travel for Portfolio.com, won in the beat reporting category.
The Pittsburgh Business Times was the winner in the enterprise/investigative category for its story that disclosed that local doctors were receiving millions from pharmaceutical companies, along with an online searchable database.
The Pacific Business News, a weekly in Honolulu, won in the breaking news category for its reporting on the potential sale of Hawaii’s biggest utility in a hostile takeover.
The Baltimore Business Journal won in the blogging category for its “Back to Work” blog, in the research category, and in the in-paper section category for its Smart Strategies and Back to Work sections.
Kirsten Grind, a reporter for the Puget Sound Business Journal, won in the writing category.
The Kansas City Business Journal won in the photography category, while Portfolio.com won in the infographics category.
The San Antonio Business Journal won in the out-of-paper section category for a real estate section that looked at a brewery’s conversion into commercial real estate.
Finally, the Nashville Business Journal won in the Page One category.
ACBJ used two academics — Chris Roush of UNC-Chapel Hill and Mark Vamos of Southern Methodist — and two former ACBJ paper managers — Mark Ethridge and Henry Dubroff — to judge the contest.
Going from a biz weekly to a national website — within the same company
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Earlier this year, business journalist Kirsten Grind made a big career move — from covering banks for the Puget Sound Business Journal in Seattle to writing about Wall Street for Portfolio.com, a national business news site.
But she never left Seattle, and she never left the employment of American City Business Journals. Her move was the first for a full-time journalist at the Charlotte-based company, and it shows how the company is trying to use its talent on a national level.
“She is now covering finance for us, with a focus on hedge funds, private equity and venture capital,” said Mark Pawlosky, who is editorial director of content strategy and development at American City and also based in Seattle, in a phone interview. “It came about after she had taken her leave to finish her book and came back and was looking for some new challenges and opportunities. At Portfolio, at the same time, we were looking for someone who could step in at the national level and take a look at the remaking of Wall Street, how money was reconstituting itself.”
Grind is perhaps the best-known business journalist at the company. Grind was part of a team named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2010 for coverage of the collapse of Washington Mutual and the foreclosure crisis. The book deal grew out of her reporting for the Seattle-based newspaper in 2008 and 2009. The coverage also won a Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
Before she worked at the Business Journal, Grind was a writer at The Seattle Times covering biotechnology, the Port of Seattle and Snohomish County. Previously she was a business reporter and later, editor, at the largest daily newspaper in Northern Colorado. She is originally from San Diego, where most of her family still lives. She went to journalism school at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and has worked in the field since then.
American City, which is owned by the Newhouse family, took over the Portfolio.com site after the business magazine shut its print edition. It now has a staff of seven, as well as freelancers and contractors.
Pawlosky says that the site could tap into using other reporters from ACBJ papers around the country in the future.
“We are certainly open to that, as we kind of flesh out our editorial strategy,” he said. “We have a lot of talented people, and some people have deep experience in covering industries that we want to cover.”
As for Grind, she is using her experience while at the Puget Sound Business Journal to cover venture capital, private equity and other money matters on a national basis.
“She had developed a great source network while she was doing the coverage of Washington Mutual,” said Pawlosky. “What we’re asking her to do is identify this new area and this new beat. And she has aggressively gone after it. She had a great Q&A this week with the head of Google Ventures, its venture capital business. and she has done some good reporting so far.
“I think the shift from writing for a print publication into a digital, more of a blogging environment, more of a 24/7 environment, is not an inconsequential transition, but she is doing a great job.”
There are jobs in business journalism
by Chris Roush
TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Business journalism organizations are hiring despite the gloom in the media organization, according to a panel of recruiters and editors on Friday.
“We’ve had a good growth story over the last several years,” noted CNNMoney executive editor Chris Peacock, adding that his staff was at 25 seven years ago but now has 70 people. “We’re looking to expand in the coming year” by about 10 percent.
There are about 45 open positions at Reuters, said Walden Siew, an editor at the wire service.
“We’ve been steadily adding positions,” added Glenn Hall, the editor in chief at TheStreet.com. “And I expect that to continue for the next several years.”
The panel was part of the fall Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference held in New York. The panelists also provided tips on finding jobs in business journalism.
“You have to report really well. You have to have high standards,” said Beth Hunt, manager of editorial operations at American City Business Journals, which owns 40 weekly business newspapers across the country. “You have to constantly be expanding your skill set.”
Hunt said that staffs at ACBJ papers are not expanding, but the papers are hiring for positions that have been open for a whle and replacing reporters and editors when they leave. “We are hiring, and there are 40 potential places to go,” said Hunt.
Business journalists need to have skills beside being able to write earnings stories and reading balance sheets, said Peacock. They need to be able to use social media and appear on television as well.
“I put a high value on enthusiasm,” said Hall. “Enthusiasm about exploring new socal media opportunities…If they don’t have enthusiasm, that’s my cue to look at another candidate.”
In terms of not getting jobs, Hunt said a big turnoff is when the applicant hasn’t prepared. She recently asked a job applicant about a recent issue about an ACBJ paper. When the applicant said he hadn’t been reading the paper, she immediately led him out of the office.
“If you don’t know where you want to be, if you haven’t had that conversation with yourself, it’s difficult to conduct a good job interview,” said Hunt. “If you want to work for Bloomberg, you would hate my office.”
Hall said he wants to know how many followers a job applicant has on Twitter, whether they have a blog, and whether they have updated a video on YouTube.
“The ones who have created an opportunity for themselves, they are higher up in my esteem,” said Hall. “I only hire multimedia journalists.”
Ohio business journal could appear in new Clooney movie
by Chris Roush
Caleb Stephens, the managing editor of the Dayton Business Journal, writes that the American City Business Journals paper could make a cameo in the new George Clooney movie “Ides of March.”
Stephens writes, “The political thriller, set for theaters nationwide Oct. 7, was shot earlier this year around Southwest Ohio, including in Oxford at Miami University.
“Before filming started, production officials contacted the Dayton Business Journal to possibly include the paper in certain scenes. It is unclear whether the DBJ will appear or not.
“The movie centers around an Ohio presidential primary with Clooney playing Ohio’s governor and Ryan Gosling as his idealistic staffer.
“The Sony film, also directed by Clooney, has received strong reviews from the film festival circuit.”
Read more here.
Weekly biz newspaper names new ME
by Chris Roush
Lloyd Whittington has been named the managing editor of the Triad Business Journal in North Carolina.
A story on the newspaper’s website states, “Whittington has been with the weekly business-to-business newspaper since it was founded in 1998. He served for the past 11 years as associate editor and was in charge of awards programs, special publications and the paper’s weekly Special Reports. Prior to that, he was a reporter covering commercial and residential real estate and economic development.
“In his new role, Whittington will take on responsibility for the weekly news report, managing the newsroom and staff development, and assisting in strategic planning for TBJ’s print and online products.
“‘Lloyd’s a real asset to both The Business Journal and the Triad business community as a whole,’ said Editor Mark Sutter. ‘He’s smart, engaged and committed to producing quality products with real value to our readers.’”
Read more here.
