Blog competition making the financial press worse

Joe Weisenthal of The Business Insider writes Monday that the recent gaffes at The New York Times business desk — including problems with Gretchen Morgenson‘s story this weekend about swaps — and The Wall Street Journal‘s hyperbolic hedge fund conspiracy story are the result of them trying to compete with financial blogs.

Weisenthal writes, “Now in theory competition is supposed to make everyone better, so in theory competition from blogs should elevate the performance of mainstream financial journalism (and in some cases that happens, such as FT’s Alphaville, which gets the medium perfectly).

“But in many cases it seems as though publications are pursuing a blog caricature: scandal, more scandal, and stealing content. If that’s how publications feel the need to compete, it won’t make anyone fitter.

“Conversely, there are a few things that the mainstream media should draw from blogs, namely: speed, willingness to generously cite other publications, a running conversation with the readers, and yes, even a willingness to wing it a little bit more on stories that aren’t yet 100% fully-baked.”

Read more here.