The dumbing down of biz journalism

Martin Sosnoff writes on Forbes.com about what he calls the decline of quality financial journalism.

Sosnoff writes, “There were no other stories of market significance in Section 5.  Commentary on Apple’s iPhone 5 failed to take its story to the next level:  How does Apple build a repetitive business of size from its apps and streamable content to general merchandise revenues and PayPal-like point of sales processing?  If Apple can execute herein the stock has no built-in top valuation as a plain Jane hardware facilitator.

“When you start to read financial newspapers on their internet sites you begin to sense their content-less condition, particularly in a becalmed business setting.  Aside from its columnists who are lively reads, particularly Martin Wolf, The Financial Times is a bare bones publication with meager investigative journalism and little color added on breaking stories.  The Times relies heavily on guest columnists backed by powerful PR operators.  I find their special sections more informative than the grist of their daily churn-out.

“My biggest complaint about financial reporting starts with The Wall Street Journal and then radiates outward.  When a company becomes a headline risk situation, journalists and their copy desk colleagues salivate.  As trading losses for JPMorgan surfaced the stock tanked by almost $40 billion, but the $6 billion in losses was just 3 percent of net worth.  Where was the perspective on all of this?  Playing to the balcony, guys?”

Read more here.