One of my favorite questions to ask experienced editors, journalists and successful businesspeople is, “How do you consume news?” To someone outside the industry, the question might seem trivial, but let me explain.
We’ve heard again and again that successful people – regardless of industry – have consistent, intentional news diets from a variety of local, national and international sources. Warren Buffet reportedly reads six local and national newspapers daily, and Bill Gates sticks to the three biggies and a daily news digest. Younger business leaders are spearheading the move to online-first and online-only news sources, while news consumption on mobile devices and via daily news feeds are becoming more and more popular.
But what’s interesting to me about the shifting news landscape is not how we’re consuming it. Clearly, business readers are expanding to online, if sites like Buzzfeed (which just surpassed its own projections by hitting $100 million in revenue before year’s end) and Quartz (the two-year-old news site shaking up business journalism) are any indication. Rather, it’s what topics are in demand. The means for finding and consuming news have changed from decades ago, but what readers want to know about – international, national, local, trade, specialty interest news – is largely the same.
The Wall Street Journal, for example, does an excellent job of covering national business news, while The Economist and The Financial Times excel at international business, economy and political coverage. Magazines such as Fortune and Bloomberg have carved national business niches, whereas Wired and Inc. skew towards national entrepreneurship and technology.
But let’s face it: Big national and international sources can’t give smaller metropolitan areas such as Greenville the reporting attention they need – it’s not their focus, their strength. By the same token, UBJ can’t cover national and international business news like larger publications can – and that’s OK. We each have a role in helping our readers live their lives better via more informed decisions. UBJ’s role – our strength – is to be the community-level support business leaders need to move forward.
UBJ’s strength is not covering national business news. We’re not going to spend time covering Charlotte’s business news, or California’s business news, or India’s business news unless it affects our readers – at a local level – in some way. If we highlight our strengths, we can be the best at what we do.
My strength is tapping into the knowledge, experience and wisdom of people who are, quite frankly, smarter than me. My goal is to bring you news and perspectives that help you understand the Upstate better, and more importantly, help you make more informed decisions within it. Furthermore, UBJ’s rapid-fire online content plays a different part in our readers’ news diets than our weekly print edition, which we reserve for longer, more in-depth, reporting-heavy pieces that go above and beyond the 24-hour news cycle.
I’m busy. You’re busy. Your coworkers are busy. Dare to be intentional with your news diet by carefully choosing to read what will help you succeed: a blend of national and local news, of in-depth features and crucial daily spots, of business and entertainment.
Our goal is to help you succeed by being a part of a balanced news diet. When you finish reading your national paper, after you scan through your news digests and flip through UBJ, we want you to head to UpstateBusinessJournal.com to catch up on your territory. See you there.
