the decline of BW
[Thanks to Michael Pug for this. I too have stopped reading BW, and
now I know why. It used to be really good - never sparkling or hot,
but solid, informative, and thoughtful, aside from the New Economy
cheerleading from Michael Mandel in the late 90s. But now it sorta
sucks, sorry to say.]
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w061009&s=judis101106
Who reads BusinessWeek? Labor Shortage by John B. Judis Only at TNR Online | Post date 10.11.06
Ihave read BusinessWeek regularly for 30 years. I began reading it on
the advice of the late Michael Harrington, the socialist agitator and
author of The Other America. Mike used to pepper his speeches calling
for capitalist reform with supporting evidence from this eminently
capitalist journal, which he regarded as the best of the newsmagazines.
BusinessWeek became my window into what Marx called “the relations of
production.” In the 1980s, it was the place to follow the debate over
deindustrialization and the Japanese challenge; in the 1990s, it was
the best source on globalization and the new cyber-economy. And
BusinessWeek didn’t just cover management; it also covered workers:
labor unions, wages, working conditions, job training, job safety,
you name it. It was less boosterish than Fortune and less concerned
with Wall Street and the rich and famous than Forbes.
But, over the last year or so, I started reading it less, and finally
stopped altogether. I didn’t know why at the time, and I even felt
somewhat guilty about neglecting the magazine. But I figured out why
last week when I heard that the magazine’s new editor, Stephen Adler,
had fired Aaron Bernstein, who had worked at the magazine since 1983
and had written many of its most outstanding stories.
Brnstein, whom I know slightly from covering afl-cio conventions, was
one of the last people to report regularly on the labor movement.
(Not counting dilettantes like myself or Harold Meyerson, the only
others I can think of are David Moberg from In These Times and Steven
Greenhouse from The New York Times. The Washington Post and the Los
Angeles Times no longer have someone assigned to cover the labor
movement.) And Bernstein was terrific at it. If you had wanted to
follow the growing conflict between afl-cio President John Sweeney
and his former protégé, Andy Stern (of the Service Employees
International Union), you had to read Bernstein. In September 2004,
well before the conflict burst into the open, Bernstein wrote a cover
story on Stern for BusinessWeek.
But Bernstein didn’t just cover the labor movement. He covered the
ferment over trade, outsourcing, immigration, inequality and the
minimum wage. He wrote cover stories for BusinessWeek about the
growing income gap between workers and managers; he covered the
backlash against globalization that led to the anti-World Trade
Organization demonstrations in Seattle in 2000. For his reporting, he
won Gerald Loeb and George Polks awards and accolades from the
Overseas Press Club, the New York Press Club, and the Sidney Hillman
Foundation.
So why fire him? Magazine spokeswoman Kimberly Quinn said that the
magazine would not comment on the reasons for letting him go. The New
York Post, which first reported the story, speculated that
Bernstein’s firing, along with that of 13 other writers and editors,
was due to financial problems. But, still, why Bernstein, a prize-
winning reporter? I will venture another explanation–one that
reflects what I had heard from someone at the magazine and one that
also helps explain why I stopped reading BusinessWeek.
Since Adler, former head of The Wall Street Journal Online, took
charge in April 2005 from former Editor Stephen B. Shepard,
BusinessWeek has increasingly become like SmartMoney and Success: a
magazine for wealthy consumers. To see the difference between the old
BusinessWeek and the new, you need only compare issues from a few
months toward the end of Shepard’s tenure with some recent issues
that Adler has put out.
Here are some cover stories from Shepard in January and February
2005: “the Future of the new york times,” “social security: are
private accounts a good idea” (written by Bernstein), “nanotech:
there’s still plenty of hype, but the science is finally moving from
the lab to the marketplace,” and “can anyone save hp.” There were all
very important stories–the story on Social Security exposed the
shoddy economics undergirding the administration’s plan, the story on
Hewlett-Packard anticipated the chaos that has descended upon one of
America’s foremost high-tech companies.
ooking at the last few months, I can find one cover story that
resembles the old approach, but here are a few from July, August, and
September that clearly don’t: “revealed! secrets of the male
shopper,” “how toxic is your mortgage,” “50 best places to launch a
career,” “am i ready to retire?”, and “how this kid made $60 million
in 18 months.” As I looked over these issues, I suddenly understood
why I had stopped reading BusinessWeek and why its new editor would
let someone like Bernstein go. A serious writer–and particularly one
who writes about the American worker–has no place at a magazine that
aspires to be the People of the business world.
Perhaps this new BusinessWeek will make more money than the old. Then
Adler will be vindicated in the new cutthroat world of magazine
publishing, which sees magazines as simply another commodity to sell.
But I somehow doubt that a magazine named BusinessWeek can attract
the narcissistic readers that advertisers love. My guess is that,
under Adler, BusinessWeek will become a magazine that is neither
particularly profitable nor socially useful. In any case, it has
already lost at least one reader.
John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting
scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.