No longer just gray: business journalism takes off; Technology, public appetite and far more sophistication in delivery have conspired to radically transform the face of business journalism in recent decades. That's been both good and bad, with many in the profession itself bemoaning a focus on entertainment instead of information.

• Author: Millman, Gregory J.
• Position: FEI@75 - Column

Put a reader of the business news from the 1930s in a time capsule and spirit him to today's world, and his head would truly be spinning. A world of gray type and subdued coverage has evolved into splashes of color everywhere, charts and graphs, talking or even shouting heads on cable TV (think Mad Money's Jim Cramer on CNBC) and dramatically more attention on the world of business and commerce. Even that bastion of literary excellence, The New Yorker, has a regular business column.

Like virtually everything else, business journalism has been transformed by technology. Computers replaced lead type; color presses created whole new palettes. Television evolved from a small, gray box to high-definition and plasma. Correspondents, many hired less for their knowledge than their looks, now chatter with executives and analysts on cable TV programs. Even now, the Internet now seems to be the future of much of communication in an attention-deficit world in which depth is often disappearing.

That's not to say, however, that serious and important stories about business aren't being done. They remain a staple of major newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as the major business magazines like Fortune, Forbes and BusinessWeek. There's a bigger audience for business news than ever before, and a greater capacity to deliver it. Financial executives, especially public company CFOs, are often in the forefront of those supplying information, be it filtered through analysts or investor relations departments.

Indeed, today's business press does have a real impact on business, perhaps greater than ever. Sometimes the influence is overt, as happened earlier this year when press coverage of a professor's research into backdated options spurred intensified regulatory interest and a stock market response. Sometimes, the influence is subtle.

One study, for example, found that press coverage alone can influence auditors' opinions on a company. Presented with information about companies that had defaulted on their loans, auditors were more likely to issue a negative opinion if the press had covered the default. "What was startling about this research is that there was no new information in the press, just a repetition of information available in the audit work papers, yet auditors were more conservative once they saw an article," says Jennifer Joe, assistant professor of Accounting at the Georgia State University's Mack Robinson College of Business.

Sometimes the influence shapes how business people see themselves and their businesses, and lasts for years. George Gendron, who edited Inc. magazine through the 1980s and '90s, created a publishing phenomenon, a hit with advertisers and readers--not just a magazine, but a community. Before Inc. came on the scene, no magazine was addressing the needs and concerns of entrepreneurial business.

"Six months ago, I get off a plane and I hear this guy shout, 'George! George Gendron? I was number 152 on the Inc. 500 in 1995!' It's like we're blood brothers or something," Gendron says. For two decades, Inc.'s intensely loyal readers supported not only an advertising bonanza but also a healthy conference business.

The Inc. phenomenon is one of the latest developments in what is actually a very long history; after all, business writing has been around almost as long as writing itself. Some of the first cuneiform tablets were financial reports. In his new book, Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and Its Role in Society, University of North Carolina journalism professor Chris Roush relates that lenders set up a network of correspondents to file reports on prices and political conditions as early as the 1500s.

Interest in prices and market moves seems to have been the main driver of business coverage through the 19th century, and as the Industrial Revolution rolled, the press rolled along with it. The first American business newspaper appeared in 1793, Julius Reuters founded his international news agency in 1849 and The Wall Street Journal started publishing in 1889. For most of that history, business reporting addressed a narrow audience of specialists.

Then, as the 20th century debuted, the broader public took at least a fleeting interest in what muckrakers were stirring up. Ida Tarbell scrutinized the Standard Oil Corp. in a series that ran for 19 months in McClure's magazine. In articles that later became books, Lincoln Steffens's Shame of the Cities exposed business and government corruption and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle tackled the meatpacking industry.

Yet for reasons still not entirely clear, the heyday of muck-raking lasted only a few years. By the second decade of the 20th century, it had faded from the scene. Then came the 1930s, the decade of depression, and then the '40s, the decade of war. The public had a lot on its mind besides business. It wasn't until the '50s...