Recent market tremors are a challenge for the media

The recent ups and downs of the stock market make it tough for the media to assess what is going on, writes Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review.

Allsop writes, “Since Trump took office, the news cycle has been consumed by a pervading sense of political crisis, bolstered by the rise of destabilizing populist forces worldwide. Market indicators in the US, by contrast, have consistently been strong. Financial coverage, accordingly, has taken something of a back seat. When it has come to the fore, it’s tracked more closely than usual with political developments. ‘The fact is that politics is driving the economy to an extent that is very atypical… probably to the greatest extent that we’ve seen in our investing lifetime,’ one analyst said over the weekend.

“In this context, recent jitters pose a challenge for financial journalism. Is market volatility an understandable reaction to a highly volatile president and global political climate? Or does it signal something more alarming about an underlying weakness in the economy? While there is little consensus among commentators, some experts have warned the market is overdue a big fall—skeptics worry that the US could enter a recession as soon as 2020. ‘In recent months, the anxiety that we could be in for a replay of 1929—or 1987, or 2000, or 2008—has become palpable not just for the Aspen set, but for any American with a 401(k),’ the Times’s Alex Williams wrote yesterday.

“As the 10-year anniversary of the 2008 crash passed in September, financial journalists looked back on why they didn’t see it coming. While myopia around the recklessness of big financial institutions was not uniquely a failure of journalism, the media as a whole was overly credulous and did not connect visible dots.”

Read more here.