Media News

The lessons from covering crypto

Lauren Watson writes for Columbia Journalism Review how cryptocurrency coverage has evolved to where skepticism is not encouraged.

Watson reports, “It’s also crucial to be mindful of coverage as hype—as with vitriol or falsehoods that emanate from MAGA-land, providing a platform comes with risks, and even critical discourse can be exploited. ‘I sometimes worry that by covering certain things, you’re kind of giving more attention to these meme tokens that will result in more people investing in them and the price going up,’ Quinn said. ‘There’s so many influences in the information that’s put out by these companies trying to get people to invest, and it’s just nonsense.’

“That will only become easier as the SEC, under Trump, sets about dismantling its crypto investigations unit and halting legal action against exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, loosening restrictions. ‘Crypto feels very emboldened to build right now, without being prosecuted,’ Chow said. And yet, without oversight, more of ‘trad fi’ (traditional finance, in crypto parlance) is set to feel the impact when the next crash comes. Such was the case recently in Argentina, where President Javier Milei promoted, in an X post that he shortly deleted, a cryptocurrency called $LIBRA, whose value rapidly skyrocketed and then collapsed—a classic ‘rug pull’ (a crypto term for abandoning a project after raising funds, leaving participants with worthless tokens) that rattled the nation’s economy; Milei is now under investigation for fraud. Many Argentinians invest in cryptocurrency—which, in light of extreme inflation, they commonly view as safer than the peso. Comparisons to the United States, in the wake of Trump’s commitment to Bitcoin, abound.

“That story was covered by CoinDesk, including reactions from Bitcoin-adjacent executives—at least some of whom were underwhelmed. (Absent a buying plan, the founder of a crypto hedge fund posted on X, the strategy was ‘a pig in lipstick.’) Quinn and her ex-CoinDesk colleagues looked on as major outlets picked up on the reporting, much as they have on other crypto news; the drama of their exit seems not to have made a lasting impact. ‘This community has a five-second memory,’ she said. ‘There are cases of scammers that rug-pull, then a year later they are considered rehabilitated. People forgive very quickly, it seems—or forget.’ Her editors are now looking for work. She has followed this and other stories for her new Substack, Scamurai, focused on crypto scams. White welcomes the addition of an independent journalist to the scene. But as she told me, ‘It’s not lucrative to be a crypto skeptic.'”

Read more here.

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.

Recent Posts

Saba rejoins Debtwire as senior reporter

Danielle Saba is rejoining Debtwire as a senior reporter covering retail, leisure and health care. She…

10 hours ago

Bagehot Fellows announced for 25-26

The Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism announced Monday its new class of ten…

13 hours ago

Wired seeks an executive director of audience development

Wired is looking for an experienced, creative, relentless newsroom leader to oversee audience development and…

15 hours ago

The Information hires Kruppa to cover AI

Tech news site The Information has hired Miles Kruppa to cover artificial intelligence and the money flowing…

15 hours ago

Wired hires Robison as senior correspondent

Wired executive editor Brian Barrett shared the following announcement on Monday: Hi all, I'm thrilled…

16 hours ago

Bloomberg issues travel warning to staff

Bloomberg has issued a travel warning to its staff, reports Semafor's Maxwell Tani. Tani reports,…

18 hours ago