How to fix business journalism

Marek Fuchs, TheStreet.com’s media critic who was on a panel that I organized and moderated at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers annual conference on what’s wrong with business journalism, publishing his introductory speech Monday.

In part, Fuchs wrote, “Here’s my solution. Though a wall exists between a news outlet’s journalistic and business sides, it needs to be scaled in this one circumstance. We need to give business journalists the sort of real-world business experience that will inform their writing for years to come. It might not be working on a trading desk, but even making some sales calls or seeing how a business plan for a new division is structured can only help. This means, that media outlets must send business reporters for occasional rotations on the business side of their operations.

“Also, we must formally train business journalists in the history of business. In all its liveliness and utter ridiculousness, business repeats itself in cycles. Anyone who is writing about it must have a sense of what business history is all about. Too often, when a business journalist invokes history, it is merely the last time something similar happened. History’s cycles are not that tidy, and a good formal education would teach more journalists that.

“An entire separate lesson must be devoted to the enduring difference between journalism and Wall Street. The main difference — and a major cause of mistakes on the media’s part — is that journalists are concerned with what is happening in that moment. But businesses — stocks, for example — are priced on the hunch of what will be.

“Business is probably the most complicated field to cover. The issues and markets are not contained. And the business media serve too many masters — from those in high finance to those interested in personal finance to those interested in the social significance of events in the business world. But that’s no excuse for messing up GDP so frequently or for acting like the cast of the gullible when it comes to puff-files of CEOs.”

Read more here.Â