News today is that Bloomberg is buying BusinessWeek from McGraw-Hill. According the Eric Savitz at Barron's the selling price is a bargain basement $2M to $5M. Of course, it also includes acquisition of $40M in debt. BW has more than 400 employees but has been cutting staff steadily for a decade, so you know how big it once was. It's name is mentioned with the same gravitas as the Wall Street journal, Barrons, even the New York Times.
I remember sitting in on an interview by Kathy Rebello, then a senior editor, after a product review at CES. For the company (not a client) it was a major coup to get a live sit down with a BW editor, especially Kathy. And I watched as she took the story apart and reduced the CEO to tears begging for her not to write the story. Every client I had wanted to be in BW and every time they said it I told them about that time. BW was never a friend of any business, but they were always a real watchdog for investors and the public. To get a positive story was a big deal (and I did it twice), but you really had to do your homework.
Bloomberg will keep the name and claims it will keep the print publication alive.... you can believe that if you want. We'll still have the website for a while and our memories of what was once a vibrant publication that really covered business.
