More change for the better

I'm feeling positively giddy.
Take a look at this story on the Web site of Crain's Investment News. Or look at this one. Or this.
Notice anything? Each of them is attributed.
Just two months ago I used this blog to complain that Investment News engaged in the annoying and unprofessional practice of not disclosing the sources of news stories. Investment News, apparently frightened that someone might actually read another publication, used the phrase "according to published reports" every time it summarized an exclusive story from Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or any other publisher.

I don't know the inside story of what prompted the shift at Investment News. I sent an email to editor Jim Pavia yesterday morning. But I haven't received a response.
Nonetheless, it does seem Investment News has had a change of heart. And that has gladdened my heart.
(Now it's probably too much to hope for .... but I will hope that Investment News will eventually learn to link to the sources of its summaries and to source material for its original stories.)

The change at Investment News comes a little more that a week after my complaints led VNU to end the use of inappropriate advertising links. And it was just a few weeks ago that BtoB magazine, also a Crain publication, began using external links in its copy -- something I'd been pushing it to do for a long time.

So with all these changes -- each of them making for better products and an all-around more professional environment in B2B journalism -- is it any wonder that I'm giddy?

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism ethics