Kenneth Li of Reuters has posted on his blog his interview with Fox Business Network‘s Neil Cavuto about the business news cable network’s launch on Monday.
Here is an excerpt:
Is there a risk of alienating the professional audience?
I don’t know. Are you offended as a savvy financial writer when someone explains EBITDA to you in the first reference? Or when someone explains price-earnings or cashflow? Probably not. So the Journal in this case, or USA Today, or Reuters will have that. And the avid market enthusiast understands that and moves on and stays to read the stories. I think the same applies to TV viewers. It’s a fairly ubiquitous audience. People will appreciate it. It’s not talking down (to people). The cardinal rule of business journalism 101 is to explain and move on. I think those who are savvy know it and move on and those who don’t, learn it and move on.
Bill O’Reilly once described the guiding principle behind Fox News as “America is good.� What’s Fox Business Network’s guiding principle?
To the greater point, we like America too. But we also like capitalism. There are many flaws to this system, but I tell you what, I haven’t seen a better one yet. I travel the world fairly extensively. For all our flaws, we’re still envied, copied and emulated. I like to point out as we did during the Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, Adelphia, WorldCom scandals, I remember distinctly there was a news organization that said ‘This was just the tip of the iceberg and we were going to see virtually all companies caught up in some form of ill repute. I’ve actually done the math on this. There are about 9 to 12 companies that had serious problems and whose executives either went or are on their way to jail. There are nine to 12,000 publicly listed companies. I’m not saying they’re all saints. All I try to do is give it balance.
Read more here.
