TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Jonathan Dahl is editor of SmartMoney magazine, the Dow Jones & Co. monthly that competes in the personal finance category against Kiplinger’s and Time Inc.’s Money.

Dahl oversaw the magazine and its Web site during the tumultuous financial crash that drew increased national attention to personal finance coverage. For 2008, the magazine’s “Tough Customer” column won a Deadline Club Award, one of several honors that year. Its investigative pieces on annuities and retirement funds helped lead to reforms within the industry and more oversight from Washington.

At the Journal, Dahl served as a reporter, senior writer and bureau chief. He was one of the founding editors of the “Weekend Journal” section. Earlier in his career, he covered such topics as the asbestos industry and homelessness. His story “Missing in America,” a first-person account of his search for a missing homeless brother, was nominated by the Journal for a Pulitzer Prize.

He came to SmartMoney in 2006. His book, “1,001 Things They Won’t Tell You” (Workman Publishing), is based on the magazine’s long-running “10 Things” column and reveals insider information from doctors, bankers and dozens of other professions. Dahl attended Columbia College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1980. He received his master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in 1981.

In an e-mail interview with Talking Biz News, Dahl discussed the magazine’s strategy and personal finance reporting in general. What follows is an edited transcript.

How do you define personal finance journalism?

I’d say the definition has been evolving. The field used to just mean service-oriented pieces about what to do with your money. But  today, the best personal finance journalism educates readers about the industries that handle and affect their money, offering insights into how the companies operate. The field is much newsier now, with more investigative reporting and trend pieces, and covers both domestic and global markets.

In other words, the scope is pretty big.

How does SmartMoney differentiate its personal finance journalism from its competitors?

We go against the grain in three ways.  When we redesigned the magazine last year, we returned to putting more long-form stories in the mix, so you’ll find not only  good advice but also in-depth reporting and strong writing in SmartMoney — the hallmark of any good business publication. We’ve also gone out of our way to be visually attractive‹with clever covers and cool graphics that aren’t normally associated with personal finance coverage. And finally, we’re not afraid to be a little humorous — have you seen “DumbMoney” on our last page? (A recent example: the $100,000 razor).

It’s a different approach, but it’s working: The magazine and its website have either won or been nominated for 18 national awards in the past two years.

What are some of the key personal finance issues that the magazine will focus on in 2012?

It’s a long list: The future of the euro. The uncertainty over our own government’s plans for financial and health care reform. The inability to make money in any savings account. The troubled housing and job markets.

Ultimately, though, I think 2012 will be the year of reckoning for baby boomers. They can’t go on being so close to retirement age with not enough saved and shaky health plans. It’s an enormous and important class of folks facing one crisis after another.

How much does the magazine look to its sister business journalism operations The Wall Street Journal, Marketwatch, Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires in deciding what to cover in the personal finance area?

We each offer a different product that reaches a slightly different audience, so we stay fairly separate in terms of developing story ideas.

But we all operate under the same high standards of journalism.

Tell us a little bit about Smartmony.com and how it also differentiates itself from competitors as well.

Unlike most competitors, Smartmoney.com has its own staff and produces the bulk of its own content. I’m particularly proud of how well it has responded to the changing needs of investors and consumers this year. Most personal finance sites rely on static tips that are recycled through the year, but SmartMoney.com is constantly revising its advice. Recently, we started something pretty unique: a “real-time advice” blog that gives the personal finance angle to breaking news throughout the day. Readers can immediately know now if a strong retail sales report will mean fewer shopping discounts, or how the declining euro might affect their 401(k) plan. It’s been such a success The Wall Street Journal runs many of those pieces on its own website.

Are there some personal finance issues that the magazine simply won’t touch or cover?

No.

Who is the average SmartMoney reader, and what are they getting out of the magazine?

They’re either fairly sophisticated about money or have decided they want to learn more about it. The majority are male, but we’re trying to change that with covers like “Why Women Get a Raw Deal on Retirement.” Of course, we hope that SmartMoney readers are becoming –sorry about this — “smart” about their finances. But we also want them to enjoy or be intrigued by the experience of reading the magazine. Personal finance  shouldn’t feel like homework.

What topics do you consider to be the strengths of SmartMoney’s coverage?

We’ve been ahead of the game in warning readers about a litany of financial moves and products, like brokers sticking people’s excess cash into worthless “sweep accounts” or not acting as your “fiduciary” (which means they don’t have to act in your best interest). A lot of publications have followed these stories later. Our stock picks aren’t too bad either: We’ve beaten the market seven years in a row now.

But I think our biggest strength has been keeping an eye on the larger picture. With all that was happening with the markets, we knew that by midsummer the basic tenets of how most people invest had to change‹hence, our “Investing  Reinvented” cover. (We used an Einstein image for that.) We also recognized early that boomers were facing a host of new headaches, and highlighted them with covers like “The Rising Cost of a Midlife Crisis.” And we had great timing last spring with “The Power of Gold” (blessed with a great closeup image of a gold bar). It’s efforts like these that I think prove personal finance can be newsy.

Any areas where it could improve its coverage?

We feel like we cover all the important bases, but we’re always looking to include more stories that could better predict where markets are heading.

As we dive into longer form stories, the art of strong storytelling becomes more important too. We’re focusing some of our efforts there and hiring accordingly.

Should SmartMoney readers do what its stories say, or should they also get advice from finance professionals before making such decisions?

Great question, and the answer is no, don’t listen to just us. We want you to use SmartMoney as a guide for investing, but still work in most cases with a professional who knows your needs. That’s part of the objection we have to personal finance stories that try to tell people what to do: Each of us has our own individual financial issues and needs to customize our finances accordingly.

But we also think you should know how those professionals work, what their conflicts of interest are, and how they get paid. I think I know a good magazine that might be able to help with that.