Fortune & Other Media Are Shrinking...Their Offices & Number of Issues They Publish + Why it Matters

We've seen a possible new media trend that involves downsizing — but not necessarily the downsizing you first think of.

Some media are downsizing their office space. As recently noted in the Boston Globe by Jon Chesto (@jonchesto), two local papers, the Salem News and the Herald News as well as publishers from Los Angeles to Miami are moving into smaller offices because they can no longer justify their older, larger offices in part because the papers have laid off staff members. This follows similar moves by the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. According to Chesto, "Many of their buldings are local icons, fuxtres in their respective cities' downtowns. But they were built for a different time in the media business." 

That's a trend that, unfortunately, is likely continue, creating a potential downward spiral. According to Chesto, "The downside: Newspaper companies are left with fewer hard assets, as operating performance declines. That can make them less attractive to potential buyers and lenders," which may make it more challenging to attract digitally-focused enterprises.

The other part of the trend is that Fortune magazine is downsizing its publishing schedule. Not that long ago, Fortune published twice a month or 24 issues. Currently, "Fortune is published monthly with two double issues (June and December), for a total of 14 issues," according to the publishing statement inside the print edition available in the Jan. 2020 issue.

But Fortune just  announced that it is downsizing its publishing schedule as of Feb. 2020 to 10 times a year. The magazine says this will allow for bigger issues and investment in digital content, including a paywall. The magazine will offer three tiers of subscriptions: digital-only ($49), digital plus print ($99) and Premium ($199) which offers videos from Fortune conferences and other exlusive content.

The downshift in the number of publications will make competition to get content into the magazine harder. That said, there may be more digital content, behind the paywall, but that still may limit the influence of a Fortune article.

We do expect other publications to shrink their publishing schedule. Forbes, which used publish twice monthly, now publishes nine times a year "except for four issues combined periodically into two and occasional extra, expanded, or premium issues. Combined, expanded, and premium issues count as two subscription issues." Is that clear? Fast Company and Wired both publish 10 issues a year, down from 12. So "monthly" doesn't mean what it used to.

Forbes has made an effort to push more digital content but has done so by tapping a community of vetted contributors (who, it is important to note, are not reporters).

Ultimately, our point, is that smaller staffs and fewer issues could lead to a few things:

1. Less opportunity for marketers due to reduced frequency of issues and the possibility of smaller print issues.
2. The need for reporters and editors decreases if you're publishing nine issues instead of 24 per year.
3. People will become less reliant on a magazine if they're not seeing it as frequently. One of our colleagues thought that his subscription for Forbes and Fortune had expired because he thought he had stopped receiving them, only to find out the number of issues had decreased. "With more time between issues, I find I don't think about what Forbes or Fortune is doing," he said. "It's out of sight, out of mind, and yet they're still publishing and still interesting. But now they generally make a stir primarily with their signiture issues like the Fobres 400 or the Fortune 500. That's a shame."

All of which could portend to media that's in a downward spiral.

There is some good news: Business Insider has some strong growth trends. BI hopes to reach 1M paid subscribers (currently there are 200,000), generate 1B unqiue visitors per month (currently it gets 375,000/month) and to double its newsroom. We'd love for that to be a new trend.

5 Factors That Make It Harder to Break Into National Business Media

Securing national business coverage has never been easy. In preparing to talk to a prospective client recently, we thought it would be helpful to explain why it's gotten tougher -- even before you get to the client.

Clients always want to know about relationships with the media but these days, even with a strong knowledge of the media and good relationships with reporters, there are other challenges to consider:

1. Shrinking news rooms. Newsrooms have seen dramatic cutbacks and buyouts. Before Feb. 2019, there were more than 1,000 newsroom job cuts in 2019. There is real concern that some newsrooms are ghost newsrooms, with not enough reporters trying to fill up the newshole, and often relying on syndicated content. So it's harder to find reporters these days.
2. Increased demands on reporters. Concurrent with job cutbacks, the demands on reporters to produce and generate views has increased tremendously. Reporters typically have to file more stories, across different formats (you can read a news story on a radio station's website or watch a video on a print newspaper's website) all while posting content across social media to drive traffic back to the news organizations' website. That means reporters have to think harder about whether they'll even take an interview because of everything else they have to do as part of their jobs.
3. Some print outlets have reduced their publication schedule or size of their print editions. Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, Inc., Entrepreneur and other prestige publications have reduced the number of issues they publish annually. Fortune used to 25 issues per year; in 2009, Fortune decreased the number of issues to 18. In 2019, it currently publishes 14 issues a year. Forbes published 22 issues in 2010 and current publishes 14 per year. Entrepreneur published 12 issues per year in 2016 but cut back to 10 in 2017 (sorry Feb. & Aug.). Meanwhile, some outlets have reduced their page size so there's less space per issue for news. (A client recently asked about taking out an ad in the Boston Globe business section and we had to tell them that there's rarely any advertising in that section.) Fewer issues and smaller space means it's harder to get ink. There is, of course, still opportunities for online coverage but we still have to deal with fewer reporters with more demands they have to handle.
4. Reporters are harder to contact. We've already established that reporters are busier than ever, But they're also harder to reach than ever. There are more freelancers who regularly contribute to a specific news outlet without being an actual employee. That means you can't reach them by phone through the publication's main number. There might not only be no number to use to call those reporters, but increasingly some of the newer digital news sites themselves don't list their phone numbers -- other than for advertising. We used to be able to follow up by phone and by smiling and dialing but that's less possible these days. For a recent client project that targeted advertising/marketing reporters, we found that fewer than half our list included phone numbers; of the ones who had phone numbers listed, 90 percent were the organization's main number, and the dial-by-name directory did not include the name of the reporter (even if they were staff reporters). By the way, of the 10 percent who did have a phone number we could reach, their voicemails were full and did not take new messages. (This is without pointing out that reporters -- across the political spectrum -- are as distracted as the rest of us by the Washington, DC news.)
5. Tech reporters at national business media are more interested in Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google (aka FAANG of the Big Five), Microsoft and Twitter but not as interested in B2B technology. The products they seem most interested are smartphones, virtual assistants (i.e., Alexa); the issues that interest them are privacy, security, crypto and blockchain but not the underlying business tech that supports those products or issues. We know that cloud computing is hot but that doesn't mean reporters at national business publications -- the Journal, Times, Wired, Bloomberg, etc. -- are able to cover a company doing well in cloud computing. The fact is that those reporters are more interested in business issues than in tech issues, and at the same time, it's hard to sell B2B tech via articles in those publications. (Partly that's because it can be much more complicated for businesses to adopt new technology, as Walt Mossberg, the legendary Wall St. Journal tech columnist, told me more than once.)

We know this list is something most clients won't like reading -- we didn't like it ourselves but we try to give clients realistic assessments -- so we  will tackle some ways to get into the national business media in a follow-up article.

In the meantime, let us what you think of these factors.

Fortune Validates Our Prediction That A Key Retail Story is Amazonification

We don't like the terms, "Amazonification" or " retailpocalypse” but in our predictions for 2018, we felt that a major trend in how reporters cover retail this year would invariably mention the impact Amazon is having on the sector.

Latest example, Fortune magazine's "3 Retail Stocks That Amazon Won't Crush." But check out the original print headline and subhead: "Filing Retail's Empty Spaces: Fundamental changes in the way people shop have driven brick-and-mortar retail stocks down to clearance-sale lows. But the retail chains that survive today's shakeout could pay off big for investors."

Both touch on Amazon and some of the details in our retailpocalypse prediction.

The article does say that "in-store shopping is hardly disappearing -- Forrester Research estimates that 87% of retail sales in 2017 took place in stores," but it continues ominously, "shoppers are shifting their loyalties, seeking out retailers who can compete for their time with low prices and online options in the era of Jeff Bezos's 'everything store.'"

As to which three stores investors should consider, check out the Fortune article itself.

Fortune Validates Our Prediction About Bitcoin

Although bitcoin has been around for a few years, it really wasn't a topic in mainstream conversation. It would get written about but it wasn't receiving daily news coverage.

In our predictions for 2018, we said that would change. We said bitcoin would not be mainstream -- by which we meant: cryptocurrencies are not something that most of us will invest in -- but it would generate lots of coverage. A lot more than in previous years.

That prediction came quickly true in 2018. Newspapers have been covering bitcoin on an almost daily basis this year. Fortune devoted its Jan. 18th issue to bitcoin.

Fortune even has a dedicated page on its website to bitcoin.

Check out the cover story: "How High Can Bitcoin's Price Go in 2018?"

For all the coverage and the interest in cryptocurrencies that rise and fall dramatically, we continue to feel they are a niche investment opportunity. Will bitcoin and its sibling cryptocurrencies thrive and take over from government-backed currencies? Certainly doesn't seem likely over the next decade.

But as we move away from using cash -- there are already some restaurants that don't accept paper currency; you have to pay electronically -- that may change, especially for people doing legitimate business across borders. The reason: banks add on fees on both sides of the transaction when American businesses pay international partners/vendors in dollars and that money has to be converted into local currency. Those fees can eat up -- unnecessarily, it seems -- a significant percentage of the transaction. With bitcoin, you avoid those fees because you don't need to convert from one currency to another. So we expect some legitimate businesses to push for the use of paying and accepting via cryptocurrency.

But there needs to be some standardization among cryptocurrency. 

And it needs to not be as volatile as bitcoin currently is. You don't want to accept a currency that drops 50% in a matter of hours, with no discernable reason.

Fortune, WSJ & NYTimes Validate Another of Our Predictions -- This Time About Unicorns

In December, we asked (somewhat pretentiously), "Whither unicorns and their business models?" 

We said, "Unicorns – startups valued at upwards of $1 billion – were big in 2015. Expect coverage in 2016 that questions whether the unicorn bubble will burst. This will be true not just of privately held startups but also of publicly held companies (that represent the next stage of unicorn development) that fail to fully monetize their businesses. Twitter and Yahoo! – that means you and other social media platforms that fail to live up to financial expectations."

In Fortune's Feb. 1st issue, an article entitled, "Good Luck Getting Out!," made the case that private investors have put $362 billion into startups over the past five years, pumping up the value of so-called unicorns. Now the broken tech IPO market is cratering. Who will survive the reckoning?"

And on Friday, the Wall St. Journal reported, "For Silicon Valley, the Hangover Begins: With venture-capital investors increasingly nervous, once-hottech startups are retrenching" while the Times' Farhad Manjoo profiled one unicorn that's facing a heap of problems in his article, "Zenefits Scandal Highlights Perils of Hypergrowth at Start-Ups." Both articles are worth reading.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that we called out Twitter and Yahoo!

Twitter shares "hit a nominal low on Thursday a day after it said that user growth had stalled for the first time since the company went public in 2013," The New York Times reported this month. 

And Yahoo!? Well, The New York Times also reported this month that "Yahoo Announces First Round of Layoffs as It Trims 15 Percent of Workforce."

We feel badly for the employees of Twitter and Yahoo! and other unicorns at risk, but we feel pretty good about our trend-calling ability.

Fortune Validates Our Prediction About Cord Cutting

With its Feb. 1, 2016 article, "The Bundle is Dead, Long Live the Bundle," Fortune validated our prediction. In Dec. 2015, we wrote, "We expect some people not to cut the cord because it’s more complicated and not necessarily cheaper if you cut the cable cord."

As the subhead to its article, Fortune wrote, "Fans of streaming video find that ditching cable doesn't always lower their bills."

That's frustrating but correct.

Thanks for validating our prediction!

Important Business Lesson from Blue Man Group

Here's a quick post based on another Fortune article: "How Blue Man Group learned to see green."

The brief article provides an interesting overview of the accidental national theater group that was generated by brought to you by the color blue, but there's at least one bit of advice worth considering, from co-founder Chris Wink:

If you can be a good collaborator, it's like having a superpower because you can connect your gifts with that of someone else. The point is to get the work done and not look out for your own celebrity or money. I stopped trying to have my own career, found some friends, and worked with them.

Since I was talking with a client last week about the power of collaboration, I thought this was worth sharing on our blog.

3 Lessons from Great Fortune Article about IBM's CEO Ginni Rometty

As compared with Forbes, which is more focused on investment opportunities, Fortune has staked out management as its focus.

Jessi Hempel wrote a terrific profile of IBM's Ginni Rometty in the current "Most Powerful Women" issue. What made the article, "IBM's Ginni Rometty looks ahead" so worth reading is that Hempel not just the insight into Rometty's personality and career achievements. It's that the article contains at least three pieces of business insight that all of us can use.

Here are the three lessons I learned from the article:

• "Whatever business you're in -- it doesn't matter -- it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value." We should all look at where we can improve the value of our services and products.
• "IBM's most senior executives have long served on three teams -- operating, technology, and strategy -- to help guide the company. Rometty created a fourth leadership team, the Client Experience Team, which she chairs. There are no senior executives on the team. Rather, she appointed a series of client-facing executives to meet with her once a month."
•  To open new markets, sometimes you need to find new problems to solve for new internal customers.  For Rometty growth comes not just from inventing new technologies to sell to her existing clients. "Growth at IBM's scale also means creating new markets...Now Rometty is making a similar pitch to marketing executives, promising that technology will change the way they do their jobs. It won't be an easy sell: Marketers are less apt than bureaucrats to be wowed by a charismatic CEO or statistics about petabytes. Many are accustomed to seeing computing as a tool to support their creative endeavors, not the starting point."

Some good business lessons from a terrific article.

Fortune Validates

Back in Feb., we issued the prediction that focus on mobile payments would increase.

Last month, Fortune joined the New York Times and Wall St. Journal and other top-tier media in validating our prediction. Check out the cover story: "The Death of Cash: Tech giants - and startups like Square - want you to use your phone to pay for everything from gum to train rides. Here's how they plan to achieve cash-free nirvana."

We predicted that e-wallets would be mainstream in five years but we may move that up to four years, based on the kind of media coverage we've been seeing.

Fortune Looks at the Qualities That Make for an MVP CEO

Just as Major League Baseball compiles its annual list of National League and American League All-Stars, Fortune is compiling its list of CEOs to comprise Fortune's "first Executive Dream Team."

I'm not sure of the value of an "Executive Dream Team," but editors and readers like lists. And like the All-Star balloting, readers can vote for the CEOs of their choice. However, the link is embedded in the print edition as a QR code, and voting page was not available by searching for it online; so if you have a BlackBerry, for which QR code scanners are unreliable at best, you probably can't vote. And if you don't get the print edition, you probably can't vote. (Which is why I'm including the URL here.)

According to long-time management reporter Geoff Colvin, there are five "tasks that star CEOs of tomorrow will need to do extraordinarily well. While I don't disagree with Colvin's choices, I think some of those tasks are more important than others and that there are a bunch he left out.  Here are some from his list I agree with:

• Understand global business in their bones.
• Change strategies and business models more than before. I think this is very important.
• Identify and manage risks before they become disasters. Also very important.

But that list is not complete. There are other qualities, too, that an Executive Dream Team should have, especially when considering the executives (see below) on Fortune's ballet. Qualities such as:

• Understanding how to execute.
• Providing leadership.
• Taking care of employees, including training and succession planning.
• Fostering innovation. You can't update your business model if your organization isn't innovating.
• Being able to work with board members and customers -- different selling skills, but both are important.
• Understanding marketing.
• Anticipating trends that will drive sales.

Which CEO would be on your Dream Team?

• J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon
• Apple's Steve Jobs
• McDonald's Jim Skinner
• IBM's Sam Palmisano
• PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi
• IBM's Sam Palmisano

What other qualities did Fortune overlook? Or that we missed? Let us know.

4 Lessons from Old Spice's Adman

Fortune's new design offers short profiles with some lessons learned. Not surprisingly, considering that we live in a How-To Age, in which everyone is looking for advice and tips, the best part of these articles are often the lessons learned.

Case in point: the Fortune profile of Iain Tait, the brains behind Old Spice's YouTube strategy.

Here are the bullet points:

• Be ready for change.
• Be malleable.
• Learn to hustle.
• Consume wildly.

I admit: on their own those bullets are not very enlightening, so check out the article itself. But Tait suggests looking for holes in your organization to fill, that shouting the loudest isn't the path to success and find different sources of information and inspiration from your colleagues.

Forbes vs. Fortune: Most Powerful Women Edition

Even as the dynamics of print publishing have changed dramatically since I last about Forbes vs Fortune in 2007 ("The difference between Forbes & Fortune"), the two magazines seem to continue to compete primarily with each other, ignoring any online competitors.

One thing for certain: the only people outside of Fortune who read Fortune as closely as PR people do are the editors and reporters at Forbes. The same is true of Forbes, too. (I vividly remember talking with a Forbes reporter who was as well informed as I was about how BusinessWeek and Fortune had covered a client of mine. And that reporter's knowledge was based partly on interest in my client and mostly due to how Fortune was covering the sector.)

Both Forbes and Fortune have redesigned their print publications; Forbes has undergone a more comprehensive makeover while Fortune has added some accessories.

So it's interesting -- and no coincidence, really -- to see that Fortune ran its "50 Most Powerful Women in Business (FORTUNE's annual ranking of America's leading businesswomen) in its Oct. 18th issue while Forbes ran its The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in its Oct. 25th issue.

The differences in the lists and their methodologies tell us a lot about the two magazines.

It goes beyond the fact that Forbes offers twice the number of powerful women than Fortune. And that both lists contain many of the same women, including Oprah (No. 3 in Forbes and No. 6 in Fortune), Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi (No. 6 in Forbes, No. 6 in Fortune). Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly (No. 12 in Forbes, No. 4 in Fortune), Yahoo CEO Carol Bratz (No. 42 in Forbes, No. 6 in Fortune), and BofA Merrill Lynch's Sallie Krawcheck (No. 44 in Forbes, No. 24 in Fortune).

• Forbes and Fortune agreed on one women: both ranked Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld as No. 2. The other women who appeared on both lists were ranked at vastly different levels: Avon CEO Andrea Jung was No. 47 in Forbes but No. 5 in Fortune; Fidelity's Abigail Johnson was No. 59 according to Forbes, but No. 21 in Fortune; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was ranked No. 66 by Forbes but reached No. 16 in Fortune.
  
• The Forbes list includes some women from outside the US like Gail Kelly, CEO of Wespac in Australia. The Fortune 50 list is comprised entirely of Americans. That said, Fortune also includes its global list, the International 50.
• The Forbes list also includes politicians while Fortune lists "Washington's power players," and both lists include Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, SEC's Mary Schapiro, and Justices Elena Kagan and Sonja Sotomayor. Interestingly, Fortune did not include Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (but Forbes did) and Forbes included Michelle Obama at No. 1 while Fortune did not her at all.
• Forbes includes celebrities while Fortune is more serious, and does not. Thus Forbes ranked Lady Gaga at No. 7; Beyonce at No. 9 (but includes her last name (Knowles) for its readers who may not be familiar with her work; Ellen DeGeneres (No. 10); Angelina Jolie (No. 21, and, surprisingly, did not include a photo); Madonna (No. 29 and no photo), Chelsea Handler (No. 33 -- I like her show but I still don't know how she made this list); Sarah Jessica Parker (No. 45); Suze Orman (No. 61), Rachel Ray (No. 78), and Martha Stewart (No. 99).
  
• Forbes, which loves celebrities, also listed models: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (No. 35 and also the First Lady of France, and instead of a photo of her, there was a photo of the Eiffel Tower); Heidi Klum (No. 39); and Gisele Brundchen (No. 72). Forbes also ranked designers Tory Birch (No. 88), Vera Wang (No. 91) and Donna Karan (No. 96) as well as news anchors and editors Katie Couric, (No. 22), Tina Brown (No. 34), Meredith Vieira (No. 40), Diane Sawyer (No. 46), Rachel Maddow (No. 50), and Christine Amanpour (No. 73).
  
• Forbes also ranked female athletes including Serena Williams (No. 55) Venus Williams (No. 60 and Danica Patrick (No. 93).
• Forbes also listed a number of politicians including those named above as well as Sarah Palin (No. 16), Meg Whitman (No. 47), Carly Fiorina (No. 51), and Maria Shriver (No. 53). I suspect that, if written after the midterm elections, Meg and Carly would not make the list.
• Forbes also includes royalty, including Queen Elizabeth (but not the richer, commoner JK Rowling).

The main criteria for Forbes was dollar amount, including company revenue, and "buzz" factor, defined as the number of Factiva hits, Google hits, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and radio and TV appearances over the past 12 months.

The main criteria for Fortune "is four-fold: the size and importance of the woman's business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman's career, and social and cultural influence." According to a blog article by longtime Fortune reporter, Patricia Sellers, the pattern for selection for Fortune appeared to be that "the consumer packaged-goods industry is welcoming to top-level women."

Ten Observations about Executive Profiles

The executive profile has long been a staple of business journalism. But given some changes to the media world itself, here are some observations about the current state of the executive profile and some lessons PR functions can consider.

1. Fortune has always favored profiles of well-known CEOs of large companies -- witness the deluge of cover stories on Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs. If Fortune does not profile a well-known company or CEO, it then turns to a lieutenant (they're always called lieutenants, never colonels, I don't know why). For example: "Warren Buffett's Mr. Fix-It."
   
2. Fortune does run articles on CEOs of smaller companies, though generally the company has to be a cool, innovative startup.
   
3. Fast Company profiles lesser-known executives with an interesting story to tell. It helps if the if they executive -- doesn't have to be a CEO -- works at well-known. Example: "How Nike's CEO Shook Up the Shoe Industry," which graced the cover of the print version under the headline: "The World's Most Creative CEO: Nike's Mark Parker Uses Elite Athletes, Artists & His Own Show Designs to Drive a $34 Billion Business."
   
4. The different headlines for the print and online articles provides a lesson into what might sell as a cover line for print as opposed to what you need for a good, search-optimized headline for the online space. The Online headline is shorter, mentions keywords faster (Nike, CEO and shoe) and avoids words that aren't search-relevant (artists, athletes, creative, elite, and Mark Parker).
5. Forbes runs profiles of CEOs at large companies to depict a buy or sell opportunity or profiles of small, private companies as an opportunity of what to watch and invest in if the company ever goes public. Fortune and Fast Company often write profiles that offer lessons learned or interesting case studies. Forbes often seems to select executives based on the magazine's contrarian perspective.
6. The articles are detailed and well researched, but they tend to show one aspect of the executive. Whether Fortune, Fast Company, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek -- all the profiles generally have a single narrative, no matter how lengthy. Fast Company likes creativity or innovation so their articles often portray those qualities. Fortune and Forbes like turnaround stories (but you really have to prove that turnaround has occurred (more on this, below). Forbes in particular likes to tell stories that have a lot of drama to them, a CEO undertaking a heroic struggle to launch or save a company.
7. Only after a downfall or misstep, will a follow-up story show a more nuanced portrayal of the executive. For example, Mark Hurd got tremendous, positive coverage (including a Forbes cover story) since taking over H-P in 2005. However, after he was pushed out last month, suddenly stories appeared that said a lot of employees did not like Hurd and that, while great at cutting costs, he was not a great manager, and made some short-term gains at the expense of long-term investments -- and that the alienation of employees and his own board were large factors in the decision to fire Hurd. (I'm not taking sides here, I'm merely pointing out that a different take on the impact of Hurd's management style came to light only after he had left the company.) The same is true for Alex Bogusky, the former co-chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky was cited in dozens of Fast Company articles over the past few years, with always glowing anecdotes, quotes, etc. It's only after he stepped down that we get a more complete picture. In "Alex Bogusky Tells All: He Left the World's Hottest Agency to Find His Soul," we find out thata Bogusky could be a tyrant at work (basically telling everyone in his then-Miami offices that the company was going to relocate shortly to Boulder, CO, and cutting out key members who stayed in Miami), that he fired a great copywriter one time to make the point that no one's job was sacred, etc. Some of the aspects of being a bad boss are not unique to Bogusky. But it didn't seem too difficult for Fast Company to find people who provided the Bogusky-as-bad-boss storyline after he stepped down.
   
8. The point is that if you do manage a high profile visibility campaign for your executive, negative stories could appear after that executive leaves the company. Usually those postmortem stories don't make the companies look that good (even H-P after making the decision to get rid of Hurd) -- so companies should be prepared that negative stories could arise at that time.
9. Telling a turnaround story to get the attention of the national business media is difficult. For public companies, you need to show a certain number of quarters of positive results -- and you need validation from analysts who go on record saying that the company has turned around. Sometimes organizations want to tell a corporate change story, but again, you need hard, objective facts to make that case to a reporter. (A decade ago, a client wanted to tell Fortune and BusinessWeek they had made a significant shift in their culture, exemplified by an increase in their US marketing budget of $10 million -- which could have been an interesting hook, except that their overall US marketing budget, which did not go to us, was already at $90 million; the story did not fly because the reporters did not feel a 10 percent increase actually represented a culture change -- a point we had made before contacting the reporters.)
10. You need to have a good story. This seemingly obvious point often gets overlooked. A good story could be a stock increase, entry into a new market, the success of a new technology or device. It often is not the fact that a company has signed a new partnership deal that has no dollar amount attached to it. It combines a good narrative with objective facts. And, PR functions need to figure out the payoff for the the reporter and outlet. By payoff, I mean: what will the readers get after spending time with the article: will it be an investment idea, a management tip, something for them to try or buy? Too often, we forget to think about what need for the reader that the story we're pitching will address and solve. But it's a key aspect that editors consider.
    

Points 7 and 8 may not be relevant for most PR functions out there, but I was struck by recent coverage at how much negative information about celebrity CEOs did not make it into profiles that had helped establish these CEOs as celebrities.

Let me know if you agree or disagree with these observations.

Small Business May be the Engine of the US Economy But Not According to Bloomberg & Time Warner

First casualty of 2010: the demise of BusinessWeek SmallBiz. According to a post card, SmallBiz's last issue was Dec. 09/Jan. 2010. This development follows closely the demise of Fortune Small Business (FSB).

Survivors include Inc. and Entrepreneur.

It's been commonly acknowledged that small business is the engine of the US economy. But not enough advertisers seem to believe that. Clearly there's not enough support for standalone publications directed at small businesses, at least according to billion-dollar publishers Time Warner and Bloomberg.

Of course, both Fortune and Bloomberg BusinessWeek said they will continue to maintain their respective small business web sites and will now integrate small business coverage into their main print publications. That means there will be less content for and about small business. What was particularly helpful about FSB and BusinessWeek SmallBiz is that they provided service journalism: articles that not only reported on current trends (which will likely continue) but also how-to articles, and it's the latter type of article that won't be included in Fortune and Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

That's a shame because small business owners are time starved but craving information geared just for them. The daily papers can't cover small businesses too closely; the Wall St. Journal and New York Times allocate a page -- about a story or two -- each week.

Of course, there's still Inc. & Entrepreneur. I hope they can pick up the advertising dollars left on the table after the demise of their competitors.

NYT's David Carr May Be Right That Business Media Has Changed Forever -- But Steve Jobs Continues to Be a Great Cover Subject

As I wrote earlier this week, Is NYT's David Carr Right? Has Business Media Changed Forever?, business media probably has been changed forever, due to the advertising decline and the impact of the Internet.

But in his column, "Business Is a Beat Deflated," David Carr said he thought we had reached the end of the period of CEOs-as-gods cover stories.

Well, someone forgot to send the memo to Fortune.

Fortune just crowned Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade.

Do we really need to determine the CEO of the Decade?

Is most of this decade one that most CEOs -- whose tenure has gotten shorter and shorter -- would prefer to forget?

And, by the way, for the record, I pointed out that there was an exception to the no more CEOs-as-gods stories: "Steve Jobs, who still gets adulation."

That prediction proved correct far more quickly than I had expected.

When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes -- Or, less poetically, some serious changes to Fortune Magazine

Ok, perhaps Shakespeare is not relevant, as in the quote from Sonnet 29, but there's still something rotten in the state of the publishing world.

Fortune Magazine will cut its publishing frequency from 25 issues -- basically every two weeks -- to 18 issues, which means some months Fortune will publish only once a month.

Although it recently remodeled the look and feel of the prestigious business magazine, Fortune is expected to remodel the magazine again, this time focusing on longer articles on fewer topics. If Forbes is about investing, and BusinessWeek about news, Fortune will continue its emphasis on managing (which had gotten less emphasis over the past decade) by adding new columns "to help business professionals do their jobs more effectively. It will have a cleaner, less cluttered look and an upgraded Web site," according to the Wall St. Journal.

In other words, the new Fortune will be more like Entrepreneur or Inc. or even its kid sister publication, Fortune Small Business (FSB) -- all good magazines, but all really focused on service journalism. That's not exactly what Fortune, which has columns on investing and executive lifestyles, was known for.

What's interesting, I think, is that service journalism -- basically articles offering advice and how-to's -- has become more important because the media world is evolving so rapidly that few people truly have a secure grasp of things. I think that's why how-to articles in the blogosphere are often so much more widely read than analysis articles (such as this one). People are looking for advice to help them make sense and respond to the changes.

Well, it looks like Fortune is giving people what they want.

Oh, and unfortunately, there will be layoffs, too.

Here are some of the proposed changes, according to the Journal:

• The magazine itself will become more of a lush-looking premium product. Fortune plans to increase the minimum number of editorial pages in each issue.
• They will stop (or reduce the number) of "CEO-as-god magazine covers that have been a staple of the magazine, whether with Jack Welch or Warren Buffett." Replacing the "CEO-as-god" stories will be more conceptual stories, such as one about the White House's relationship with Google.
• The emphasis on large companies will continue, including on its website. Fortune.com will be "recast to focus on key companies. Executives point to Fortune.com's blog about Apple Inc. and said there are more high-profile companies that will be treated similarly."
• I would expect certain special issues to continue, including the Fortune 500 issue, among others. In fact, we can expect more online-only content about the Fortune 500, "which the magazine hopes to turn into more of a brand that lives online all year."
• Fortune is beefing up service journalism (as noted above), "adding features about career advice and business how-tos. One might feature a person who gives hundreds of public speeches a year, and her advice on how to give more effective presentations. Another column might explain how to manage your online profile. Reflecting the growing influence of the federal government in corporate affairs, Fortune is adding a one-page column called 'Washington Watch.'"

But is it enough for Fortune to succeed? I don't think so. I think Fortune looses some prestige by dropping its publishing frequency, and perhaps some of its relevance. I also think they're making at least one mistake: "Executives decided it was more important for Fortune to be more visible on the Web, where the magazine may add staffers."

Yet the web-based version of Fortune is free -- the magazine generates no subscription revenue there, just some ad buys. But online advertising buys typically generate less money than print ads.

Meanwhile, on the personnel front, there are going to be layoffs, probably in the next week or so. It also means that whatever stories reporters were working on may be shelved. It means turmoil for the editorial staff and those of us pitching them.

How Business Magazines Are Responding to the Continued Ad Slump

We've seen a big change at BusinessWeek, now owned by Bloomberg. Big changes at Fortune. I guess we're waiting for the shoe to drop for Forbes.

Meanwhile, here are some interesting points from the Journal article, "Fortune Magazine Cuts Back Number of Issues; Changes Are Said to Foreshadow Further Restructuring at Time Inc. Publications as Ad Slump Drags On"

• "Industry executives believe news, business and general-interest magazines—unlike fashion and entertainment titles—are unlikely to rebound fully even after the economy is on a firmer footing." Which is to say, despite a recent Journal article that the business spending slump looks like it's ending, we're still not out of the woods yet.
  
• "They see a permanent change in how readers interact with news titles in the Internet age." Again, the advice component is something that news outlets and news websites are not offering.
• Business magazines have been hit hard during the ad slump: "The number of advertising pages in Fortune dropped 35% from a year ago, on par with the declines at BusinessWeek, Forbes and Newsweek." In contrast, "Ad pages for entertainment and celebrity magazines declined 15% this year from 2008, and fell 18% for fitness and men's lifestyle magazines such as GQ, according to Mediaweek," a far shallower dropoff.

Twittering Interns: How do you build awareness on social media and protect your brand?

According to the current issue of Fortune, a number of high profile companies have hired interns whose job is to be brand ambassadors on Twitter.

Part of that makes sense. Although I've seen demographic data that shows that the largest percentage of people using Twitter are in their 3os and 40s, but clearly college kids "get" social media easier than the rest of us.

But it's a bit concerning, I'd think, to put control of your brand in the hands of someone who understands the technology but might not understand the brand's heritage.

According to the Fortune article, "Summer Twittering," HP's CTO will let two interns live in his house next summer -- for the third year. HP says this lets it understand its younger consumers." Um, ever hear of focus groups, HP? This sounds more like the premise for an MTV reality program, "The Nerds Next Door."

The three other companies cited in the Fortune article -- Butterfinger, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns -- are consumer brands much more than HP is. And their "funterns" (Butterfiner), "twintern" (Pizza Hut) and, um, intern (apparently Papa Johns doesn't give its internship program a cutsey, possibly demeaning term) actually can post some success.

• The Pizza Hut twintern "started tweeting about pizza rolls in June and quadrupled the company's followers to more than 14,000," Fortune reported.
  
• Meanwhile, interns at Papa Johns ("Pinterns"?) blogged, tweeted, and shot video all summer. The company now has more than 300,000 Facebook fans."

Yet, what happens when those PaJinterns go back to school in the fall? Who will maintain the brand's presence in social media from Sept. trhough June?

More than that, I wonder since the interns at Papa Johns ("PaJinterns"?) spent real money shooting video, what kind of quality controls Papa Johns put in place to protect the brand's image.

Look, using interns on social media can make sense, but social media is a channel thought which to engage with customers. But a brand is a major asset for a company. Instead, I think, companies should train their brand management teams on social media so that they can make sure the social media activities present a consistent, accurate brand experience.

That consistency is one of the reasons ESPN, which has been involved with social networking for "a long time" (could mean more than 12 months) issued new guidelines for its staff regarding what they can or can't do on social media.

According to the New York Times, "ESPN Limits Social Networking," these guidelines say "that on-air talent, reporters and writers are prohibited from having sports-related blogs or Web sites and that they will need a supervisor’s approval to discuss sports on any social networking sites. They will also be restricted from discussing internal policies or detailing how stories are “reported, written, edited or produced.”

Why implement these guidelines? According to the Times article, “The first and only priority is to serve ESPN-sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content.”

Presumably, on-air talent, reporters and writers are familiar with the ESPN brand -- and even they're not allowed to use social media without a supervisor's permission.

So the question remains: who should companies put in charge of their social media presence? How can they ensure they balance that with protecting the brand attributes?

Companies will have to figure that out.

How to Write an Earnings Release? Follow Bing's Advice for Flacks & Hacks

The press release is not dead, but is evolving. But one version of the press release is alive and doing ok even as it has not evolved.

That is the earnings release for public companies. Part of the reason earning releases have not evolved is due to legal and financial constraints. Investors expect these releases to contain specific information. The SEC expects the releases to meet certain standards.

Fortune columnist Stanley Bing, who in real life heads up CBS' communications department, offers up a template to make it easier for flacks to write earnings release each quarter. Bing also offers a template for hacks to write articles on corporate earnings each quarter.

Following Bing's templates, outlined in The Mad Libs Report, would save time, minimize stress for PR pros and journalists alike.

New Front Opens in Battle Between Flacks & Hacks: Bing vs. Jarvis

In Jeff Jarvis is a twit, Stanley Bing takes Jarvis to task for suggesting:

1. The press release is dead.
2. Journalists do not need PR pros.

I've written before that I don't think the press release is dead. It is evolving. It is interactive, multimedia and SEO'ed, but not dead.

And I also think journalists do need PR pros -- and PR pros, of course, need journalists.

But there's long been a tension and a war of words (on Twitter, that's a war of 140 characters) between flacks and hacks.

Technology hasn't changed the battlefield.

It's only made it easier for everyone to watch and participate.

Read Bing's rant. It's a good defense of PR. Of course, when he's not a columnist, he's the head of corp comm for CBS. So read the comments, too, to get more of Jarvis' perspective (he responds on Bing's blog).

But the most important point is Bing's final sentence: "nobody benefits when the hacks attack the flacks." I would add, flacks don't benefit when they attack hacks.

What we really need to do is respect each other.