One might argue that the weakened state of business media doesn’t matter much; it’s simply an overabundant commodity in a tightening market.
Hmmm. This isn't an issue I'd given much thought to. The arguments make some sense - fewer outlets for story-telling and learning from others, more fractured sources of coverage, potentially more bias. Those seem like they could be all true. Do they matter? Maybe. But in my mind, small and medium sized companies were largely ignored by the press anyways. Today, thanks to the web I see an incredible opportunity for companies to get their stories out however and whenever they want - regardless of size, location, industry, etc. And for CEO's to learn more than they ever imagined - in just an hour every morning on tools like Google reader. The real problem? Only a small percentage of companies and CEO's seem to take advantage of the cornucopia of opportunities out there. The majority of companies I see haven't even figured the power of search marketing yet, never mind having any hands-on idea about what social networking could do for their story. And I see way too many CEO's roaring around ensuring that the picture of business that they learned 10 or 20 years ago is what their business becomes. Which is a key reason in my mind why there are so many under-performing businesses. So I'm not sure the real problem is the success, decline or failure of the traditional press (speaking of what happens when you operate your business looking backwards) but the failure to take advantage of the changing but phenomenal opportunities to learn and communicate going forward.
