What Would Google Do? How Media Must Revolutionize Their Thinking

JEFF JARVIS blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com. He is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. He is consulting editor of Daylife, a news startup. He writes a new media column for The Guardian. He consults for media companies. Until 2005, he was president and creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Prior to that, Jarvis was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; TV critic for TV Guide and People; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; assistant city editor and reporter for the Chicago Tribune; reporter for Chicago Today. He says he is at work on a book.

John A. Byrne is the executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com. In this role, Mr. Byrne is responsible for the editorial operations of BusinessWeek.com and will guide the further integration and collaboration between the print and online editorial staffs. Prior to this, he was the executive editor for the print publication since 2005 Previously, Mr. Byrne was editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine. He joined Fast Company in April 2003, succeeding founding editors Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, where he worked to reinvent the business magazine. Before joining Fast Company, he worked for BusinessWeek for nearly 18 years, most recently holding the position of Senior Writer and authoring a record 57 cover stories for the magazine. His articles have explored the fairness of executive pay, the folly of management fads, and the governance of major corporations. Mr. Byrne developed the idea of a monthly best-sellers list, launched the industry-leading business school rankings, established and managed the magazine’s ranking of the best and worst corporate boards, and created the list of the most generous philanthropists. Mr. Byrne is the author of eight books on business, leadership, and management. His latest book, published Sept. 11, 2001 by Warner Books, is Jack: Straight from the Gut, his highly anticipated collaboration with former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welch. The book debuted at the very top of The New York Times bestseller list. Byrne has written or co-authored seven other books, including Chainsaw (HarperCollins, 1999), the behind-the-scenes story of Al Dunlap’s rise and fall as a business celebrity. The book received widespread acclaim. Publishers Weekly called the book a “blistering saga” and a “sizzling tale.” The Street.com said Chainsaw “should be required reading in all business and accounting schools.”

Byrne’s other books include: Informed Consent (McGraw-Hill, 1995); The Headhunters (MacMillan, 1986); Odyssey (Harper & Row, 1987), the business biography of former Apple Computer chairman John Sculley; and The Whiz Kids (Currency/Doubleday, 1993), which explored the life and times of ten Army Air Force officers who helped to remake the Ford Motor Co. in the post-war period. Managment guru Tom Peters called the book “an important milestone in American management analysis. Warren Bennis has said the book is “the best history of American business from World War II to the present.” Byrne also wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1997) and co-wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Executive Education Programs (McGraw-Hill, 1992). Mr. Byrne has a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri and an undergraduate degree in English and political science from William Paterson College.

Steve Adler became editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek on April 1, 2005.

Mr. Adler began his journalistic career as a reporter for the Tampa Times and the Tallahassee Democrat. In 1983, he joined The American Lawyer and later became editor of the magazine and editorial director of the American Lawyer Newspapers group, a chain of local dailies and weeklies.

In 1988, Mr. Adler joined the Wall Street Journal as legal editor. He was appointed to the Journal’s page-one staff as special projects editor in 1994, and was named deputy page-one editor in 1997. Between 1995 and 1999, he directed reporting teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes, for articles on the tobacco industry (1995), the new AIDS treatments (1996), and military spending (1999).

Mr. Adler became assistant managing editor of the Wall Street Journal in 1998; in this role, he supervised investigative coverage, taught journalism ethics and standards to Dow Jones news employees worldwide, and assisted the managing editor in a variety of news and administrative assignments. In 2000, Mr. Adler was named deputy managing editor. His responsibilities included helping direct news coverage of the daily paper, extending the reach of the Wall Street Journal on the Internet and in other media, and overseeing the Wall Street Journal Books imprint.

Mr. Adler’s book, The Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom, was published by Times Books in 1994 and won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award in 1995. With his wife, novelist Lisa Grunwald, he was co-editor of Letters of the Century, published by Dial Press in 1999, and of Women’s Letters, published by Dial in 2005.

In 1985, Mr. Adler was named a National Magazine Award finalist for his American Lawyer article on the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal. In 1993, he and a Wall Street Journal colleague received an award of merit in the John Peter Zenger Media Awards Competition for their article “Common Criminals.” He is the 2008 winner of the Benjamin Rush Award from Dickinson College.

Born in New York City, Mr. Adler received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1977 and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1983.

Mr. Adler is a member of the board of directors of the Goddard Riverside Community Center, one of New York’s original settlement houses. He is also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism. He and his wife have a daughter and a son and live in New York City.