The Toughest Job in Journalism

Some people might think that covering Iraq is the toughest job in journalism, and it may be, but publisher of my alma mater Business Week is way up there.

The magazine has been losing ad revenues, staff morale is in the commode, and I've heard from current and former staffers that it's been bleeding red ink to the tune of $20 million a year. I've also heard that if things don't turn around, BW will be sold in four years. Or at least, so the staff was told in a meeting last year, or so I'm told.

If so, that would be the end of what had been a fine franchise and, under former editor Steve Shepard, a leading voice in biz news.

To help stop the flow of advertising red ink, McGraw Hill has hired Jessica Sibley from the Wall Street Journal. Here's a Mediabistro article on the move. quoting the press release in full.

It's an impressive hire, in addition to being the first (I think) woman publisher of BW. She has great credentials so as they say, we shall see what we shall see.

P.S. The people I know at BW -- I mostly run into them at farewell parties nowadays -- are fairly certain BW will turn around. I sure hope so.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.