TheStreet.com’s Inman answers questions on business journalism

William Inman, the editor in chief of TheStreet.com, was on Reddit earlier Friday and answered questions about the financial news site and his views on business journalism.

Here are some of his posts:

I think today’s financial media does a lousy job generally speaking. I think it should have seen the meltdown of 2008-2009. It should have uncovered Madoff. It should have laid out the financial consequences of recent dismal congressional actions. … To me the golden age of financial journalism was at the start of the 20th century, the era of the muckraker, when hard-hitting stories were written about the likes of John Rockefeller and Carnegie, even the president of the United States (Harding and the Teapot Dome). Today’s media types are too timid…. As for the role of The Street: It is to be less timid than the other guys, and willing to take risks with news coverage.

It’s easy to boost advertising and ratings and page views with cheerleading and puff stories–accompanied by pictures of pretty girls. But I’m pleased to say that’s not the way The Street works. We care about stories that need to be written, and make a difference.

The markets change each day, and journalists have got to constantly reinvent themselves. I remembered Mike Bloomberg cornered me one day and told me he was a better journalist than I was. He said I cared more about words and a good narrative story, than data. But data drives everything else. He was right. I haven’t forgotten.

We have regular refresher sessions — we call them boot camps — for reporters, updating them on finance, data interpretation, and other points that will make them do their jobs better.

One of the first things we teach reporters is how to read SEC filings. Almost always beginning from the bottom to the top, the fine print first. I discovered the cost of Steve Jobs’s private jet buried in the fine print of Apple 10-Ks.

Read the rest of his comments here.