A new model for business journalism

Paul Glader, a journalist and King’s College professor, writes about how business news organizations should change how they cover issues, people and companies.

Glader writes, “Leading in the new era of business journalism means  re-evaluating the aftershock-focused model of how business newspapers and magazine cover issues, people and companies. It means, as a news organization, to turn on the headlights rather than to rely on the rearview mirror. It also means creating new models of collaboration and conversation within a newsroom. Hagerty writes:

    “One weakness in the WSJ coverage, I think, was that the housing/mortgage markets and the Wall Street bond market were covered by different groups of reporters. That meant we didn’t write as much as we should have about the incredible and very risky growth of the Wall Street mortgage securities market in the years leading up to the crisis. Wall Street investment banks were not only underwriting rapidly rising amounts of mortgage securities and inventing complicated new types of mortgage investments; they also were moving into the business of making home loans to consumers via brokers. We wrote about this trend from time to time, but we weren’t sufficiently focused on that angle.”

I wrote back to Hagerty saying, “You make a strong case for collaboration between groups of reporters. Has the WSJ figured out ways to do this better now? Or is it impossible?”

Hagerty: In general, I think WSJ reporters are pretty good at collaborating. Editors need to look out for opportunities to encourage even more of that. Too often editors only get galvanized once there is a crisis.