It’s the economy — are we stupid?
It’s tough being a business journalist these days, notes David Carr. Kinda like “owning an ice cream parlor where spinach is the only flavor on the menu.”
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.
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.
