Categories: OLD Media Moves

New investigative editor at BusinessWeek

There’s a new job at BusinessWeek, the weekly publication produced by McGraw-Hill. Paul Barrett from the Wall Street Journal has been made assistant managing editor of investigative projects. Previously, investigative stories were handled by a specific department editor and then by higher-ups at the magazine like assistant managing editors.

Earlier this year, long-time editor Steve Shepard stepped down from BusinessWeek to become the new dean of the journalism school at CUNY. He was replaced by another Wall Street Journal editor.

I worked at BusinessWeek for two years, and although Shepard liked to promote that the magazine had done a lot of investigative business journalism pieces, there were complaints by correspondents in the bureau and some of the writers in New York that the magazine could — and should — do more.

This Wall Street Journal-ization of the magazine is likely to continue, and I think that it will make the content of the magazine more investigatory.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.