Who said reading’s a solitary game?
This afternoon I had a quick interview with the always-affable John Byrne, Executive Editor and Editor in Chief of BusinessWeek.com. Byrne, who will be a guest on ‘From Print to Digital’ on Dec. 15, spoke at a panel at the ad:tech New York confab titled, ‘Publishing in the Digital Age – Context is King.’
I wanted to follow-up on Byrne’s comments about how the Web has altered journalism from a “product” that can be pushed to consumers to a “process” that can be shared with the public.
“We engage the audience at every level,” Byrne said, adding that he “tweets” at least 12 times a day to keep his readers informed on what BusinessWeek.com is up to story-wise. “What stories we want to write, who should we interview? Traditionally, journalists were afraid to reveal that they’re writing. [But] we’re using these steps as a starting point to extending relationships. The story is the campfire, and you have a community gathered around the campfire… The real story is the people gathered around the content.”
One way BusinessWeek.com is able to take the pulse of its readers online is through its ‘What’s Your Story Idea?’ blog. The blog features ‘Five Questions For…,’ a way for readers to submit their own questions for the movers and shakers who constantly pass through BusinessWeek’s editorial offices. “There’s an acute need to do things that matter to the audience and build an ‘emotional trust.’”
Asked how he makes sure that user-generated content does not ultimately dictate BusinessWeek.com’s storyboard, Byrne said: “We still decide what story to do, but, frankly, the ideas we’re getting are as good if not better than” stories that originate with BusinessWeek.com’s editors and reporters.
Byrne also stressed that media companies need to do a better job of taking advantage of what the Web has to offer compared with other media. “We embrace the audience and inform them what we do and how we do it,” he said. “That’s what the Web really does. All the video, aggregation, curation will be for naught unless you induce loyalty that makes your site a true destination.”
Byrne was also asked why BusinessWeeek parent McGraw-Hill Cos. killed BusinessWeekTV. (The nationally syndicated, personal-finance show, which debuted in 2001, runs through the end of the year.) “We couldn’t make it work financially,” he said. “It’s a question of focusing more on video online instead of broadcast.”
