It's the economy -- are we stupid?
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David Carr has a piece in the New York Times about why business journalism has failed so badly lately. Excerpts:
" “The headline that you will never hear is ‘The market was down 110 points, a random fluctuation in a very complex system,’ ” said Eric Schurenberg, the former managing editor of Money magazine who is busy building — get this — a financial Web site for CBS. “No one has ever known what was going to happen, but there is this temptation to act like you did. But that fantasy has been exploded.”"
"To engage their audience, business journalists need to act like things are changing all the time. As it turned out, what didn’t change much was the fundamental lessons: have a diversified portfolio, don’t buy more house than you can afford, don’t take on more debt than you can support, or trade on the margin."
And I especially liked Carr's line: "Being a financial news anchor must seem like owning an ice cream parlor where spinach is the only flavor on the menu."
My own take on this hasn't changed since my rant on our economic literacy last September. J-Source ran an earlier column by Michael Hlinka, who cites the issue of bias and argues that journalists need to broaden our scope from holding only leaders and policy makers to account.
" “The headline that you will never hear is ‘The market was down 110 points, a random fluctuation in a very complex system,’ ” said Eric Schurenberg, the former managing editor of Money magazine who is busy building — get this — a financial Web site for CBS. “No one has ever known what was going to happen, but there is this temptation to act like you did. But that fantasy has been exploded.”"
"To engage their audience, business journalists need to act like things are changing all the time. As it turned out, what didn’t change much was the fundamental lessons: have a diversified portfolio, don’t buy more house than you can afford, don’t take on more debt than you can support, or trade on the margin."
And I especially liked Carr's line: "Being a financial news anchor must seem like owning an ice cream parlor where spinach is the only flavor on the menu."
My own take on this hasn't changed since my rant on our economic literacy last September. J-Source ran an earlier column by Michael Hlinka, who cites the issue of bias and argues that journalists need to broaden our scope from holding only leaders and policy makers to account.
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