More aggressive skepticism, please

Ryan Chittum of Columbia Journalism Review interviewed Conde Nast Portfolio‘s Jesse Eisinger about his coverage of the financial upheaval and his views on business journalism.

Here is an excerpt:

The Audit: It seems to me that in the business press, institutionally, there’s just not enough — not necessarily skepticism — but aggressive skepticism. Is it in short supply and why is that?

Jesse Eisinger: I do think it’s in short supply. Clearly it is.

I think that the people who have gravitated to business journalism didn’t get into journalism for the same reasons that people in political journalism tended to get into journalism, which was this sort of vestigial post-Watergate sense that we should be a check on power. I don’t think that people in financial journalism gravitated there because of that.

I sort of stumbled into financial journalism, having no knowledge of anything to do with finance or really the ability to distinguish between a stock and a bond. But I did have this sense that what I wanted to do was be a check on power in some sense and to hold people responsible for their decisions. And so, I just don’t see that as the modus operandi of the business press… questioning authority in a fundamental way. It’s not necessarily fired by a sense that we should right society’s wrongs.

That’s what motivates me—and I think that’s a little bit arrogant, so you’ve got to check yourself and be humble in that process. But the fundamental reason why we should be journalists is to hold people accountable and be checks on power. We have to have a questioning, skeptical, adversarial mindset.

Read more here.