The importance of financial journalism credibility to markets

David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters, spoke Thursday in China about the role financial media plays in the global economy, particularly China, and how business news media must become more transparent.

Schlesinger stated, “This has been particularly true during the current financial turmoil – the media industry was in its own crisis at the same time as it was reporting on the financial downturn; our sources and our readers were in crisis, too, and this meant that our stories were watched extremely carefully and people were quick to complain about anything they didn’t like.

“I am proud that most of our reporting was excellent, but those times when we didn’t get it right it was vital to correct our errors swiftly and publicly.

“Maintaining our trust with our audience is fundamental to our mission as a news service. Reporting truthfully, reporting accurately, correcting errors, obeying our standards are all vital and can’t be compromised, especially not in the heat of a major and complex story.

“We’ve learned important lessons from this period.

“One lesson was that our standards needed to be constantly examined and sometimes strengthened.”

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