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‘Rooted in family, built on hard work, raised with heart’How We Work
Radical integrity.
No exceptions.
On journalism, accountability and why the way we do this work matters as much as the work itself.
Businesses of all sizes, their leaders and teams are doing incredible things – igniting meaningful change and innovation throughout local, national and global markets. But great stories don’t tell themselves. Resources run thin. Marketing misfires. And when journalism puts anything ahead of accuracy – advertiser relationships, editorial convenience, the path of least resistance – it erodes something very hard to rebuild: the trust between those wanting their story told and those doing the telling.
At The Business News, we see it as the responsibility of the journalist – and the media itself – to push back against that erosion. Not with a policy document. With the way we actually work, every single day.
“Great stories don’t tell themselves. Making sure they get told – and told right – is a responsibility we take on each and every day.”
Megan Dickman-Renard, CEO & Publisher, The Business News
plain and simple
Here’s what we don’t do.
Sell stories or sponsored content
Coverage shouldn’t be a product. If it is, readers can’t trust it – and neither can you.
Let advertisers influence coverage
Our editorial and advertising teams are separate by design. An ad buy is not an editorial relationship.
Hide our journalism behind a paywall
News content drives decisions. Everyone deserves access to what’s happening in their own business communities.
Operate on a rigid editorial calendar
Real business news doesn’t happen on a schedule. Neither do we. If you have a story worth telling, we want to hear it – now, not next quarter.
Make reaching us feel complicated
If contacting media feels risky or unclear, good stories don’t get told. We’d rather you just call us.
Recycle stories across regions
Each region is unique – Northeast Wisconsin is not North Central Wisconsin (and vice versa). Every story we tell is reported and written for the community it’s about – not repurposed from somewhere else.
Import our perspective
We’re locally owned, locally staffed and telling stories about places where we actually live. That’s not a marketing line. It’s how we hire and how we operate.
what we believe
Four commitments we don’t negotiate on.
Accuracy & Access
Free to read. Free to share. No asterisks.
It is our mission to inform the 40+ counties we cover on what’s occurring in their local business economies. That mission doesn’t work behind a paywall. Every news article published in one of our print editions is available online – free to view, no subscription required.
We also don’t run on a rigid editorial calendar. We welcome story tips from a wide variety of sources and are genuinely open to local ideas and suggestions – because, as Wisconsin-based journalists, we live and work in the same communities as our readers and deeply care about how they’re represented.
Editorial independence
Our advertising team and our editorial team are separate. By design.
Advertising keeps the lights on. It does not determine what stories we tell, how we tell them or who gets covered. You cannot buy your way into these pages. You never have been able to. You never will be.
Our editorial process is built to ensure accuracy and accountability. Stories are written to be informative, comprehensive and capture the full picture. We take time to understand the dynamics behind the story, behind the organizations, behind the person, and to communicate it all well. That methodology has resulted in earned, exclusive media relationships built on trust, not transactions.
Open door policy
You shouldn’t need a media coach to get your story told.
Most business owners – especially those just starting out – never get media training. Nobody hands you a guide on how journalists think, what they’re looking for or how to even make first contact. And if you do figure out how to reach out, there’s still the quiet anxiety of not knowing whether you said the right thing, framed it correctly or gave them what they needed.
That friction is a problem. Because if you’re building something great, the barriers to sharing it shouldn’t have anything to do with your familiarity with media protocol.
Reaching out to us should feel straightforward. No pitch required. No press release polished. No slides prepared. Just tell us what’s happening – we’ll take it from there.
Accountability
If we get something wrong, we say so.
We hold the businesses we cover to high standards. We hold ourselves to the same. If we make an error, we correct it – promptly, transparently and without burying it. We don’t view corrections as failures. We view them as proof that accuracy matters more to us than appearances.
If you ever have a question about how we made a decision, covered a story, or handled a situation – ask us. We’ll tell you. Straight.
“The stories happening in Wisconsin right now – on manufacturing floors, start-up offices, family farms and Main Street storefronts – are worth telling with the same rigor and care as anything in the national press. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to.”
Megan Dickman-Renard, CEO & Publisher, The Business News
The people behind the work
Your neighbors, not your narrators.
The Business News is run by a small, dedicated team of Wisconsin journalists – people who shop at the same stores, attend the same events and care about the same communities as the businesses we cover. We’re not parachuting in to tell your story and moving on. We’re here, and we’re paying attention.
That proximity matters. It means we understand context that an outside publication wouldn’t catch. It means we’re invested in getting it right. And it means that when we say we care about how Wisconsin businesses are represented – we mean it personally, not just professionally.
We’re excited to build with you.
a note on subscriptions
Our news is free.
Local newsrooms aren’t.
Every article we publish is available online at no cost – no login, no paywall, no barrier. A digital subscription unlocks our award-winning specialty publications and gives you a personal profile to save articles and return to them anytime. A print subscription gets you all of that, plus the physical editions delivered. Either way, you’re directly supporting independent Wisconsin business journalism – and there’s real satisfaction in that.
Or read free, anytime, at thebusinessnews.com
still have questions?
Ask us anything about how we work.
We mean that.
Have a story tip? A question about our process? Wondering how to get your business covered? We’d rather you reach out and ask than wonder. No pitch required.