A South African business editor on financial journalism’s failure

“So while the lack of accounting and forensic skills, which might otherwise have enabled them to see a Steinhoff coming, is bad enough, due to the nature of newsrooms nowadays they lack the relationships with people in companies that might give them access to potential whistle-blowers.

“News doesn’t happen in the newsroom, the saying goes. And very few potential sources of information that expose wrongdoing will share it, at potentially great personal risk, with people they don’t know. That’s not to say we should give up on journalists’ role as watchdogs. As a society we should decide how much value we place on it. Consumers demand it from journalists, but aren’t willing to pay for news.”

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