Believe it.

• Author: Kinney, Ben
• Position: UPFRONT

Once again, the Business Handbook issue features our annual ranking of the state's largest employers. Pick up almost any magazine these days and, somewhere inside, you'll find a list--best or worst this or that, top or bottom something or another, as measured by a staggering array of criteria and rating systems. Measured by their popularity with readers and the news coverage they get in other media, they're popular pieces of information.

Magazines, including this one, publish rankings of hospitals, doctors, lawyers and companies. A month doesn't go by without BNC having some kind of list, and when we publish some of our annual ones, we see an increase in sales and requests for extra copies and for links to our website from those listed. It's not just our readers who see this content as important and relevant.

That's something I keep reminding myself of when I hear all the talk about the "death of print" and how new technology and social media are taking over like the master computer in The Matrix. (It's usually on some sort of blog or Web posting that I read this.) While I agree that social media is a useful tool in our communications kit and a great way to help us get the word out about what we're doing, our magazine offers something most social media lacks: credibility. The YouTube video of the chimpanzee smoking is funny, but if he moderated a panel to discuss the financial crisis' impact on Charlotte featuring his fellow nicotine fiend, the chain-smoking Indonesian toddler, and members of the boogie-down-the-aisle wedding party, it wouldn't be credible, no matter how many million visits it racks up.

BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA has spent nearly 30 years building its reputation the hard way, reporting the facts, digging deep to get them, writing in-depth stories that go beyond the news, providing comprehensive...