Covering meltdown of financial companies has been demanding

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman examines Friday the demands that the struggles of financial companies in the past year have placed on business journalists.

Friedman writes, “For financial journalists, the biggest challenge may be trying to accumulate instant expertise in so many areas.

“‘You have to get a primer on Fannie and Freddie,’ lamented [Newsweek columnist Daniel] Gross. ‘Next week, it’s going to be the FDIC. Before, it was the Fed and the discount window. It has been a rolling problem.’

“‘I try to write big-picture things and find the truffle on the forest floor,’ [Fortune columnist Allan] Sloan told me. Sloan is not only one of the senior observers on the Wall Street scene, but also one of the most forward-thinking of the lot.”

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