Talk About Chasing Windmills: This Journalist Launched His Own Business Newspaper 20 Years Ago

Twenty years ago this month, Henry Dubroff threw caution and reason to the wind and – after quitting his safe job as editor of the Denver Business Journal – headed west to California to launch his own, independent, weekly business newspaper.

Dubroff’s Pacific Coast Business Times defied the long odds, and today, with the largest full-time team devoted to business and financial news on the central coast, serves readers in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties, including, of course, Oprah Winfrey, just one of many prominent area residents.

The secret of his survival, and that of all successful entrepreneurs, Dubroff tells host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart, is to know the community of customers who you serve and become an integral part of it.

[The conversation with Dubroff is adopted from the Business News Visionary Awards oral history of Dubroff, recognizing him as one of 52 journalists whose foresight and efforts have transformed the journalism profession during the past two decades. For additional information, visit http://www.newsluminaries.com/.]

Photo: Henry Dubroff, Pacific Coast Business Times
Posted: March 23, 2020
Monday Morning Run Time: 56:59