THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 30, 1995 TAG: 9501280152
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Ted L. Evanoff
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Hampton Roads Business Weekly first appeared on Oct. 28, 1985, with a note from the editor setting out a clear theme for the new magazine.
Business Weekly, the note said, would ``report on the business people whose actions and opinions form the economic fabric of our region.. . . Our goal is to make this magazine your primary source of business news. . . '' about South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula.
It was a simple goal, and a lofty one. Although Business Weekly over the years changed course, the goal remained clear: Focus on local business.
Today, we've changed again. Our focus remains local business, especially small business. But our content has evolved with readers' interests.
Business Weekly now features local business and relevant national topics.
We're the hometown business magazine with special pages for money management, computers and careers.
It's little wonder we've emphasized these topics. The world has changed in the last decade.
While readers tell us they want more news, they also want more insight into technology and finance, operating a business, human behavior on the job. They want how-to information.
We've responded with four new sections inside the magazine: Technology, Money, Workplace, Small Business.
We'll prepare our own reports for these pages and draw on the best articles from more than 50 newspapers we receive through our wire services.
Our cover stories will continue to profile local business people. And we'll display a new center-spread feature, case studies that trace how Tidewater business people solved problems, reached decisions and made improvements.
What we're doing here is better distinguishing Business Weekly from the Sunday and daily business reports in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger Star. Each serves a distinct mission.
In Business Weekly, we'll keep our local touch. The Executive Track column has moved to the front of the magazine. Many readers favor this column as a feature that puts a face on business in the region.
Instead of wandering from page to page, the feature's new home is Page 2. We've also widened its scope and renamed it Career Track.
We encourage you to tell us details about the promotions, achievements and milestones of people in your company. We're interested in every industry on the southside and the Peninsula.
We've added a new feature by computer writers Richard and Roger Grimes. Their column, Doubleclik, will anchor our technology section twice a month with irreverence and insight into the computer world.
What's more, an ascerbic description of corporate life will debut in our Workplace section. Readers missed our Bottom Liners cartoon when we dropped it last fall. We think our new feature, the cartoon Dilbert, cuts to the quick with sage humor.
You might miss it if you don't look regularly, but our interest rate charts have changed. Long a fixture in the magazine, the charts are now advertisements. Here's why:
The news staff at Business Weekly routinely surveyed financial institutions for the latest interest rates on mortgage and consumer loans, and the rates paid on certificates of deposit and money market accounts.
We couldn't always verify the accuracy of the charted information. Readers complained.
Rather than constantly police the information, or complicate the charts with long footnotes, we turned the charts over to a national organization. It charges lenders to be in the charts and ensures the numbers are reliable.
Last fall, we began this process with the mortgage rates. Mortgage Market Information Services of Villa Park, Ill., gathers the rate information for INFOLINE, a business service of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger Star.
Last week, Mortgage Market also began gathering the CD, money market and consumer loan rates for INFOLINE.
The mutual fund charts haven't changed. A Florida firm compiles them for us. We're considering adding new mutual fund and stock features. If there's anything in particular you'd like to see, please tell us.
There's another change of note: This opinion page. It's new and permanent.
KEYWORDS: BUSINESS WEEKLY by CNB