Financial markets upheaval is a boost for financial news

The plunge in the financial markets has caused a boost for financial news, report Michael Grynbaum and John Koblin of The New York Times.

Grynbaum and Koblin report, “Viewership of Fox Business and CNBC, the cable news channels devoted to corporate and economic coverage, has soared over the past week as Americans seek clarity on the current market duress.

“Fox Business’s audience between April 2, when President Trump announced worldwide tariffs, and Monday was up 25 percent compared with the week before, and up 35 percent compared with its average audience last year, according to Nielsen. (Those figures reflect programming between 9:30 a.m. Eastern, when the U.S. market opens, and 5 p.m., the peak hours for business cable news.)

“CNBC saw a spike during that period, too. The channel’s average viewership from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday was up 75 percent compared with its average weekday audience since November, Nielsen said. (Fox Business is slightly ahead of CNBC in overall viewers this year, according to Nielsen.)”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.