Reference:BUSINESS PERIODICALS

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BUSINESS PERIODICALS

Accessing the Business Press

An important step in doing basic company research is to find out what is being said about your company in the business press. This is a big job! Tens of thousands of pages and millions of words are published each day in the business press. This makes it a rich source of information, but the shear volume makes identifying and locating useful information a real challenge. First, lets look at the types of publications that make up the business press:

  • News Wires - Each day companies put out thousands of press releases. These press releases announce new products, new ad campaigns, changes in management, etc.; anything in fact the the company thinks is newsworthy. Companies send these press releases, most often electronically, to various business news wires, such as Business Wire and Pr Newswire, in the hope that business newspapers and magazines will "pick up" the story and further publicize it. For current news about a company, news wires are invaluable. The primary drawback is that the source of the news is the company itself, and that fact, coupled with the speed at which the release was compiled, means that inaccuracies are somewhat common.
  • Newsletters - Business newsletters are very specialized publications, usually covering a specific portion of an industry and targeted at a very specialized audience. It usually costs quite a bit to subscribe to business newsletters, but many of the full-text electronic search tools noted below index them, so a subscription is not necessary.
  • Newspapers - There are many business newspapers published daily or weekly in the United States. Some of them focus at the national level, such as The Wall Street Journal, or Barron's Financial Weekly, but most focus on a city or region, such as The San Diego Business Journal. Also, most daily newspapers in the U.S. have a business section, usually focusing on local news stories, and are a rich source of information on small, local companies. Articles in newspapers are generally more reliable and complete than those found in news wires, because the reporters have had time to check their facts and consult other sources. However, they tend to focus on reporting the news, rather than in long, reflective articles.
  • Magazines - This category includes the types of business publications most familiar to the general public, such things as Business Week, Forbes, Fortune Magazine,etc. These are the workhorses of the business press. Stories found in business magazines are usually fully developed, take into account more than one viewpoint, and are more "in-depth" than newspaper stories. In general, an article on a company found in one of these publications will often provide more and better information than that found in a press release, newsletter, and/or newspaper.
  • Trade Journals - These are business magazines focused on a specific industry or line-of-business, such as Advertising Age, Chain Store Age, Supermarket News, etc. Articles in trade journals tend to be "nuts-and-bolts" kind of articles, giving the kind of information someone involved in the industry would need on a regular basis. They can be great sources of detailed information, but if you are looking for an overview of an industry or a market, you may not be able to "see the forrest for the trees", and need to find a business magazines.
  • Journals - As the name implies, business journals tend to be more scholarly or professional in their focus and scope. Such titles as The Journal of Marketing Research or The Columbia Journal of World Business, contain articles that are more reflective, probing into an event or an issue more deeply than other kinds of business publications. If an article on a company appears in one of these, it will deal with the company as a whole, or some part of the company in great depth. and will usually cover a large period of time.

How do you find articles in the business press? The most common way is to use some form of index, either in print or in an electronic form. The print index called Business Periodicals Index has been published every year since 1914. If you need to find articles on a company prior to about 1972, you will almost surely have to use some kind of printed index. However, more recent articles can be found through some sort of electronic periodical index, such as the ones

following:ABI/Inform [computer file]. updated daily. "ABI/Inform is the most complete access to articles in business research journals and important industry trade publications. Includes the complete text of many articles and lengthy summaries for all the rest. 1970 to the present. Included with ABI/Inform is ProQuest Newsstand, which provides access to 150 regional newspapers, each with a good business section." (available only from SDSU and AzNET domain hosts)

Business & Industry Database [computer file]. updated daily. "This database is an index to over 900 trade and business publications from more than 190 countries. Emphasis is on facts, figures, and key events related to companies, industries, markets, and products. Over 60 percent of the articles indexed in B & I are available fulltext - the remaining records include informative abstracts which highlight the key information and facts discussed in the text." (available only from SDSU and AzNET domain hosts)

Factiva [computer file] "Factiva is a web-based service which provides access to the full text of more than 3000 periodicals, including news magazines, trade journals, scholarly publications and newspapers. News coverage includes the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Factiva also offers U.S. and international corporate annual reports." (available only from SDSU and AzNET domain hosts)

Also see Emerald and Elsevier Science Direct and Sports Business Research Network and Business Source Premier and IBISWorld USA (for industry research and market research)

SDPL has several good business databases, including Regional Business News, and RDS Business Suite. (Requires SDPL library card for remote access).

These and other periodical indexes for business can be found at http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/databases/business.shtml

MP

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