Happy Anniversary

Just as L.A. Has Done, the Business Journal Has Taken Significant Strides in Itss 25 Years

By MICHAEL STREMFEL

As you’ve probably noticed by now, the Business Journal is celebrating its 25th anniversary this week and as is usually the way with such milestones, an inevitable question comes up: Where did we come from?

The newspaper you’re now reading was founded by a Houston company called Cordovan Publishing at a time when the appetite for business journalism was growing both among traditional dailies and other publications.

The weekly’s original mission, according to founding Publisher Bob Gray’s message in the premiere issue on July 9, 1979, was to provide “business intelligence” and “practical information.” Since then, the Business Journal has won numerous local and national awards and is considered a primary source of business and economic news for Los Angeles.

In the beginning, though, actual news was not the Business Journal’s strong suit. One large story, typically a feature or commentary, graced the cover each week a modest presentation compared with the current offerings.

Another difference: computers. Back in 1979, when the electronic age was just starting to creep into newsrooms, the Business Journal was strictly a typewriter operation and remained that way well into 1985.

“We’d write our stories on a double-spaced typed page and then the editor would edit them with a pencil, crossing out words or using editing symbols,” recalled Bob Howard, an editorial staff member from the early years. The marked-up page would then be retyped and key-stroked into a typesetting computer.

Early days

As for the offices themselves well, let’s just say that the characters from “The Front Page” would have felt right at home.

“(Founding editor) David Rees used to bring roach powder from home and sprinkle it along the walls,” remembered David Yochum, the paper’s editor in the early to mid-’80s. “(Rees) also had a cot set up in the office. In case any workers began feeling ill, he’d have them lie down a while.”

Shortly thereafter, the paper moved to somewhat better surroundings on Sixth Street in the Mid-Wilshire section of Los Angeles. Summers were still especially challenging.

“The only room that had air conditioning was the production department,” recalled Marcia Lindahl, production chief at the time. “We had extension cords all over the place, typewriters and fans going. We were constantly blowing fuses.”

In the afternoons, reporters who owned typewriters would go home to write their stories. As for the rest of the staff: “One of our typesetters lived nearby and had a pool in her building, so we’d all take off and go swimming,” Lindahl said.

Only a year after starting the Business Journal, Cordovan Publishing sold out to E.W. Scripps Co. “I thought this was a good opportunity,” Howard said. “Scripps is a big publishing company and I thought these guys would put a lot of money into the paper, which didn’t really happen.”

But ad sales under Scripps were especially weak.

“There were several issues in 1983 that didn’t have a single paid ad in them,” Yochum said. “Our ad director would leave early and say, ‘You can reach me poolside,’ but nobody had his phone number.”

Then in 1986, Scripps sold its 11 business journals, including the Los Angeles paper, to American City Business Journals Inc. Scripps had been losing lots of money on its papers, including Los Angeles.

“Scripps’ problem was that they ran the same story in L.A. that they ran in Houston,” said Bill Worley, a former senior executive at American City. “Our pitch was, if the president gets shot in your market, run a story on the local undertaker. Don’t try to be a national paper. It worked great.”

Money issues

American City began to invest in the Los Angeles Business Journal, as well as the other business journals it had picked up. Part of that transformation involved a formula of features that have become common in business journals all over the country.

“The Scripps papers weren’t making money, but I never thought (business journals) wouldn’t work in major cities. Crain’s was making it work in Chicago,” said Mike Russell, former chairman of American City. “Scripps was running a lot of fluff stuff and not any hard news. It was almost a press-release product, not a hard-news product. And their circulation was all mixed up. It was more of a controlled (free) circulation paper.”

To deal with its $40 million debt load, American City sold off nine of its money-losing papers in 1988. The San Diego and Los Angeles papers went to Larry Bridges, a Kansas City developer.

Bridges hired Tom Link, ad director of the Sacramento Business Journal, to take the helm as publisher and turn around the newspaper.

“When Larry bought the paper, the L.A. Business Journal was ranked, on an ad-revenue basis, 20th out of the 25 ACBJ owned and managed papers,” said Link. “By the end of 1989, it was first.”

The newsroom became more aggressive as well, though sometimes employing some very unorthodox management techniques. “I had this pink satin pillow with the word ‘Shame’ embroidered on it,” said Yochum. “If a reporter misspelled a word, I’d throw it at them.”

Over the years, the Business Journal has faced special challenges in just coming out the biggest one being the L.A. riots, which broke out on a Thursday afternoon, just as the paper was about to go to press. The layout for that week’s edition was immediately redone and reporters hit the phones to cover the unfolding situation.

Staff photographer Todd Frankel was dispatched to get photos of the looting and arson. By late afternoon, the skies were filled with smoke. The building directly north of the Business Journal was engulfed in flames.

The Business Journal eventually moved west to its current location in the Miracle Mile district. In the mid-1990s, Bridges brought in Matthew Toledo as publisher. Toledo bolstered the revenue side of the operation and then hired Mark Lacter in 1996 as editor.

Lacter restructured much of the editorial operations. As part of a major redesign, the paper was divided into various departments, such as small business, media and technology and investments and finance. He left the paper for a two-year stint at Forbes Magazine and returned as editor in 2001.

“There are, of course, many more sources of information available today than in 1979 when we started out,” Lacter said. “But I’d like to think that when it comes to business and economic news for L.A., we continue to be one of the most trusted sources.”

Michael Stremfel was an editor at the Business Journal during the 1990s. This article has been revised from Stremfel’s original piece in 1999 that celebrated the paper’s 20th anniversary.