Where the problem exists in business journalism

Emily Russell of Columbia Journalism Review spoke with Rana Foroohar, a global business columnist at the Financial Times, about the World Economic Forum and the problems with business journalism.

Here is an excerpt:

The solution is to have more and better local business coverage. But there’s fewer local news outlets out there—there’s just fewer people to write these stories and to understand what’s happening. You must think about this every day: you write for a global audience and you just made the case that the economy is like the weather. It’s different everywhere, different from hour to hour.

That’s right. There are microclimates. In addition to writing my column at the Financial Times, I’m on contract at CNN, and I’m really trying to push producers there to not call me up and say, Inflation: Biden’s fault or not? Or, GDP numbers: what do they mean about a recession? No—let’s pull the lens way back and look at the big-picture, structural things that are happening. I’m not saying don’t do spot news. But let’s layer it on top of those bigger picture trends. Read history. Read what’s happened over the last hundred years, and then layer anything you’re hearing on top of that and start to see where the gaps are, what doesn’t make sense. In particular—as any anthropologist would say—look at where the silences are. What are people not telling you? What are they not talking about?

Read more here.