Readers really matter

BUSINESS DAILIES are very much a necessity for entrepreneurs, should they ever dream of growing their enterprises to become successful ventures. Businessmen need the right information and insights regularly provided by credible sources to influence their day- to- day decisions. It is to this purpose that BusinessWorld has committed 30 years of its existence in serving its readers through excellent business journalism.

With over 151,000 readers as of 2017, BusinessWorld faces the challenge of not only maintaining its stalwart reputation of quality reportage and analysis, but also that of adapting to the rapidly changing landscape of media in the Philippines. Many Filipinos are now increasingly becoming reliant on social media Web sites like Facebook and Twitter to get their news.

Roby Alampay, editor- inchief of BusinessWorld, pointed out in an interview how people nowadays tend to go directly to the primary sources of their daily news, instead of relying on secondary sources like newspapers.

“You can go to primary sources now, you don’t need to go to the newspaper to know what the latest interest rate is or exchange rate is, or the latest trends,” Mr. Alampay said. “BusinessWorld has to go on the assumption that people will pick up primary information directly from social media. We’re not necessarily fighting on the level of speed anymore because Twitter will always be here.”

For instance, Mr. Alampay continued, why would anyone look for a newspaper to know what the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor thought on important matters when they can go check his Twitter account directly?

However, Mr. Alampay believes that in essence, the needs of BusinessWorld’s readers have not changed with the times. Despite the sweeping developments in how readers get their news, he said that the value of understanding business, economics, and even politics, has not faded away.

To this end, BusinessWorld has an edge ove r its competitors. Rafael De Larrazabal, circulation director of BusinessWorld, said that the newspaper’s quality of writing has always been the key to how the newspaper has managed to stay ahead of the curve.

“[ BusinessWorld] is instrumental for other business news dailies because we are the oldest. Back in the heydays, when we were still BusinessDay, the formula, the DNA is still there. In terms of business news, we still have that depth. We provide the most comprehensive reports and information. We are the benchmark of other newspapers,” he said.

“When you look at our newspaper, we put the right words in our stories so the readers can picture the information clearly in their minds. We don’t beat around the bush. That’s the feedback [we get] from our readers. [ Our newspaper’s stories are] compressed. You understand them immediately, especially now with the infographics on our front pages.”

For Mr. De Larrazabal, the readers of BusinessWorld, which are primarily made up of decision- makers, community leaders, and businessmen and women from different industries, have come to depend on the standards upheld by the paper to inform their decisions and run their businesses.

In addition, he pointed out that owners of small and medium enterprises, and young entrepreneurs are now beginning to see the value of the content provided by BusinessWorld.

Mr. De Larrazabal added that for BusinessWorld’s loyal subscribers, reading BusinessWorld has become a tradition passed down from generation to generation.

“We’ve become a tradition, we have been a part of our readers’ businesses,” he said.

That BusinessWorld has garnered such loyal readership throughout the decades confirms the paper’s solid foundation. Since 1987, BusinessWorld has clung to its tenets of integrity and quality in all its content, and it is in the strength of these two pillars that the paper can confidently face the future.

As the world continues to evolve into the digital age and people all over the globe are awash in a deluge of information, quality reporting only becomes more valuable. In that sense, Mr. Alampay said it is the job of the news industry and BusinessWorld to give the people the tools to analyze information and to help them understand their place in a changing world.

“[ The changing times] force the news business to go more into analysis, to go more into understanding the bigger picture, to try and paint a bigger image for everyone,” he said. “Facilitating more engagement between the audience, and the sources, and the news organization itself. That’s what’s changing all of us.”

Hence, to give more value to its readers and to engage more audience, the BusinessWorld today is no longer just a newspaper; it is now a multiplatform and a multimedia company with presence not just on print, but also on the Web, on mobile, on social media sites, and soon on television.