Portfolio shutters: No joy for competitors

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 27

You might think that those of us in business journalism would celebrate like an American Idol survivor when a competitor shuts its doors. Conde Nast Portfolio shut down today, and I don’t hear any whoops down these corridors.

For me, Portfolio was a bold bet on long form business journalism—precisely what I like to do. They produced some excellent work, but clearly couldn’t make a convincing business case to advertisers or Conde Nast management that this long form niche in the market had a bright (or even viable) future.

I’m sure there are decisions Portfolio made that will be questioned. (Online seemed a bit a like an afterthought, though it made good progress.) But the point here is that top-notch journalists are walking out the door, and the market for all of us just got smaller.

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