Don’t blame business journalists

Bonnie Kavoussi of The Huffington Post attended a panel Wednesday at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism where the performance of business journalists leading up to the economic crisis was discussed, and Reuters blogger Felix Salmon said he thinks that the public is more to blame for ignoring what was written.

Kavoussi writes, “‘Much more broadly, I think much more importantly, the public simply didn’t care,’ Salmon said of the financial instruments that almost blew up the financial system.

“‘There’s a reason why these things only come out after crashes,’ Salmon said. ‘There’s a reason why the journalism comes out after, you know, the 2000 stock market crash, after the 2008 financial crisis — because at that point we want someone to blame. If you do the journalism beforehand, nobody cares.’

“Business journalists could write about the lead-up to the financial crisis only after it had happened, Salmon said.

“‘It’s only when you’ve got something meaty, and you have a narrative with the rise and fall of this thing that it suddenly becomes a story,’ Salmon said.

“He added that no one reads business journalism anyway.

“‘If you want public-interest journalism, if you want to interest the public, you don’t want to put it in the business section,’ Salmon said. ‘The business section is the first section that they throw away.'”

Read more here.