How the 24-hour news cycle has changed business journalism

From left, Ron Insana, Sue Herera and Bill Griffeth

Cary Osborne of the California State University-Northridge alumni magazine profiled CNBC’s Sue Herera, Bill Griffeth and Ron Insana about their work on the business news channel.

Osborne writes, “Insana compared business journalism in the 1980s to banking, because of the hours. Once the New York Stock Exchange closed at 4 p.m., work was done.

“‘There was no after-hours action, there was no pre-market trading,’ Insana said. ‘If somebody buried a story late in the day, we’d simply get to it the next morning. The network was off air overnight, we were on early in the morning to pick up international markets, but not to the extent that we are today. Once we got the explosion and proliferation of after-hours trading, the job changed a lot — the influences that came from overseas news and other developments that we really hadn’t tracked as much in the past really became increasingly important and made it more of a 24/7 experience.’

“‘Nightly Business Report’ is a 26-minute, weekday program, similar to how Herera and Griffeth delivered news on the CNBC show ‘Power Lunch,’ which they co-anchored from 2003-09. Now, they give people more. ‘Nightly Business Report’ can be viewed in its entirety on PBS or in segments on the internet through the show’s website and YouTube. Audiences also can listen to the show as a podcast.

“‘Broadcasting online has grown exponentially. That’s our biggest growth area right now, as a matter of fact,’ Griffeth said. ‘It’s not a matter of just getting the story and reporting at one time, but you have to update it continually throughout the day, because the appetite for that news is voracious. People are just always, always logged on.’

“‘Sometimes the decisions are made that you go digital before broadcast, which is a big change,’ Herera added. ‘We would always say, ‘Get it to air first.’ Sometimes it’s: ‘Get it to the website and to digital first.’ … As a journalist, at first, I wasn’t used to doing cross-platform reporting, but now it’s part of everyday life.'”