Business news is news

A friend recently took a new job as a manager of a community weekly. 

He is an experienced operator and a passionate newspaper guy. He went to work and hit the ground running. 

By AUSTIN LEWTER, Director, Texas Center for Community Journalism

As with most managers these days, he has a foot in both the editorial and advertising world.

Like many, he’ll cover a football game on Friday, a city council meeting on Monday and then go sell a few ads later in the week— a regular Swiss Army Knife, and he has a track record of success. 

Early on at his new job, he sold an ad contract to a new restaurant in town. It was a sizable deal that he got prepaid to run multiple weeks. 

The restaurant had just renovated an old, dilapidated building and the new owners were investing heavily in the community.

Upon securing the ad buy and learning more about them, he told the owners he would love to write a story about them and their new business. They were elated. 

He turned in the insertion orders, got the contract paid and then hammered out a wonderful feature story. 

When he submitted the story, the publisher rejected it. 

He said, “We don’t really do that kind of stuff here”. 

My friend was dumbfounded but admitted they should have laid the ground rules on these practices before he started work. 

He couldn’t imagine why they were not interested in business features. 

The publisher said, “News is news and ads are ads. If they want to market their new business, they need to buy an ad.” 

My friend reminded him that they had, indeed, bought several ads — and prepaid.

He said the story was a personality profile, not a marketing piece, but the publisher said, “no dice.” 

My friend went back to his new customers and said the story would not run. They were disappointed.

Where are you on this? Do you write stories about businesses in your town? 

If not, why not? 

Advertising is advertising — sure, but business news is news. If the Chamber of Commerce hosts a ribbon cutting for a new business, that new business is a story.

Now, there is certainly a certain way to approach these stories, but business news — again — is news. 

I suggest, like my friend, to take a personality profile feature approach. Write about the people, not the prices. Write about their hard work, not their menu. Write about what makes them tick, not their Black Friday Sale. Write about their personal motivations, not their products. Write about their investment, not their offers. 

In each of these directives, the latter is the stuff of advertising. The former is the stuff of feature writing. 

I’ll repeat myself for a third time — business news is news. 

If said business is already advertising with you, that’s even better. If they are not advertising with you, they might consider it once they see and hear the rave reviews about that story you wrote about them. 

I’m not talking about sponsored content. That’s a different topic for a different time. I’m talking about a well-written feature story. 

Community response to feature stories about local businesses is generally very positive and can lead to measurable benefits, including increased community support, higher foot traffic and a significant impact on local business success. 

A successful business climate benefits the newspaper. The statistics back this up. 

There is high value on the support of local business — 90% of consumers say it’s important to shop local, and 87% agree that there would be a huge gap in their community without small businesses. Virtually all small business owners agree that local communities support businesses that engage with them, and 80% say this support has a significant impact on their company’s success. When featured in local media, people are more likely to take meaningful action compared to regional or national media. This could include signing up for a newsletter, sharing the story or posting a comment.

According to Poytner, nearly two-thirds of people say they trust their local newspaper, which is significantly higher than national news sources or social media, making local media the standout platform for business stories.

While ads are a common way people discover businesses, word-of-mouth remains the top method of discovery. People still talk about what they read in the newspaper.  

If it all still feels weird to you, I get it. 

Folks often shy away from feature stories about businesses for fear of maintaining editorial independence, keeping readers’ interest and commercial viability. You don’t want it read like a puff piece or advertisement. You fear running such stories could be perceived as thinly veiled marketing or a form of free advertising. 

I agree that maintaining some separation between editorial content and advertising is crucial, multiple things can be possible at the same time. 

At the end of the day, we all need content that appeals to a broad audience. Stories focused solely on a business’s operations or success might be considered too niche or “sterile” for a general readership. So don’t do that. Focus on the strong human element and find a unique angle. 

For a business feature to be newsworthy, it generally needs to offer something new or unusual with a compelling human-interest angle.

Good feature writing is more important now than ever. It is what sets us apart. In a world that feeds us more AI everyday, we can still do what AI can’t — craft compelling features about the people in our communities. 

Small business is the lifeblood of any community and people build small business. Celebrate that and write their stories too. Because, again, business news is news.