Categories: OLD Media Moves

Michael Lewis: Business journalism sucks

Liam Halligan of The Spectator interviewed “The Big Short” author Michael Lewis about the state of business journalism and financial markets reforms.

Halligan writes, “‘I’m not saying there aren’t good financial journalists,’ he concedes. But the qualification seems half-hearted — and is quickly reversed. ‘The Wall Street Journal is a much worse newspaper than it was 20 years ago,’ he asserts, taking aim at the bible of US high finance. ‘The news side of the paper has the fingerprints of the finance industry all over it’.

“Lewis broadens his critique to the media as a whole. ‘We are underserved by critical, knowledge-able financial journalists who don’t have any fear whatsoever of what their subjects think of them.’ He winces as he speaks, as if pained by his own words.”

Later, Halligan writes, “‘Why were The Big Short and Flashboys available to me to be written?’ he asks. ‘These stories should have been gobbled up by newspaper and magazine journalists.’”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.