Alyssa Krinsky of TVNewser interviewed Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman about what it’s been like to cover the economic crisis.
Here is an excerpt:
(1) TVNewser: How do you compare reporting/anchoring during good economic times with your job during the last couple of weeks?
Claman: I’ve never felt more focused and connected to my work than I have over the past 7 months. I say seven months because it was in March that the investment bank Bear Stearns began imploding at a frantic pace. It was the proverbial ‘trip-wire’ of the financial disaster we find ourselves facing today.
Back then I started working the phones and haven’t stopped since. Okay, I’m obsessed, let’s just call it what it is. I’ve barely been sleeping. If I’m not calling or emailing sources, or working late on the live specials we’ve been putting together at FBN, I’m lying in bed in the dark with my heart racing and my mind speeding, coming up with ideas of whom we should put on our air to give people a better perspective of what’s going on with their money. The responsibility we have to get the story right is immense.
And we’re extraordinarily mindful of all the rumors saturating the market. We’re very careful of running with single-source information. I’m way less interested in being the first to report a story than I am with being correct.
A source called me about two weeks ago to tip me off that the SEC was about to temporarily ban certain types of short-selling. I was the first to have it but wouldn’t go with it until I had confirmation from a second source. I rushed to the newsroom and worked with our managing editor Ray Hennessey to double-source it.
Read more here.
