Topic: How is the economy changing the way you do your job? 
 
Q. In general, how has the economic downturn affected the media?
 
A. It’s pretty obvious that ad pages are down and magazines are much thinner than they were. Editorial departments are covering what they want to, but in less space. At Information Week we’ve tried to keep the core elements that readers expect, while trimming areas when space is an issue.
 
Q. How do you decide what to cut?
 
A. It’s a top-down approach. We’ve got our core news and feature stories that run every week. Then we trim sections such as Top of the Week depending on space constraints. We’ve also tried to combine coverage and be more flexible about where things will run. Our financials page, for example, is located in different places within the book depending on where we can fit it in. It used to have the same spot in the book every week.
 
Q. What stories are getting the big coverage today?
 
A. We’ve done a lot of coverage on the effect the September 11^th events have had on business continuity. We used to look at business continuity in terms of outages caused by natural disaster or human error. Now we’re looking more at cyber-terrorism and terrorist attacks and what could happen if a business loses an entire facility as opposed to access to a facility. From that standpoint, we’re looking at whether businesses are increasing the types of business continuity services they buy from service providers or hardware providers like EMC, IBM or Computer Associates.
 
Another interesting topic is the Enron situation, and not only because it’s a high-profile bankruptcy case. Enron was a leader in technology that was moving into different vertical markets. It’s an interesting story that will live on for some time because it has so many different angles. You can cover it in the general media, business and technology press.
 
Q. What companies are you covering? With fewer pages, will it be harder to get smaller company stories in print?
 
A. At Information Week we’ve always had a top-down focus. Our editors probably won’t have a problem if you write about IBM. It’s probably going to be a little more difficult to get coverage for smaller companies. But then we have the online version of Information Week where there’s as much space as we want to write about these companies. So I don’t think the economy affects what we cover as much as where we cover it. You won’t see me covering a lot of e-service providers in the book, for example. There isn’t enough room in the print version for this type of story because the e-service model hasn’t proven to be a winning model. But if I want to write about the topic, I can do it online.
 
Q. Does print coverage carry the same weight as online coverage?
 
A. I don’t think online carries the same weight in many company’s eyes as a hard copy sitting on someone’s desk. At Information Week we’ve done a lot to promote online coverage. Our online writers have to write features. We have an ongoing project to create more depth in the online stories we cover. Whenever we write stories we have to include links to previous stories to provide the reader with context. We’ve got online reporters writing in the print book and vice versa. We have a dedicated online editorial team – writers, editors, a managing editor. We’re trying to change the image of online to be more of a formidable media presence.
 
Q. From a PR standpoint, what’s the best way to work with you to get coverage?
 
A. We’ve always tried to focus on the end user of technology and how technology is impacting their business. So it’s important for the person pitching a story to provide someone who can comment on the impact of a technology. It’s not necessarily important to write a long pitch – a lot of times I just skim through those. Just try to provide the information as clearly as possible and let reporters use their own judgment. We don’t expect PR people to know everything about the company they represent. But it’s always helpful if they can have several sources lined up on the topic they are pitching.
 
Q. Are you less likely to do in-person briefings versus phone-based?
 
A. We have some leeway in whether we travel or not. Part of that is due to September 11^th , part is to keep budgets under control. But we have been traveling - I think it’s a choice. I personally don’t want to travel as much. One good thing about being in New York is eventually everyone comes through here – vendors, PR people, end users. So I’ve been taking advantage of that.