Categories: OLD Media Moves

What’s wrong with personal finance coverage?

Linda Stern of Reuters examines the new book from Helaine Olen called “Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry,” which examines, in part, personal finance journalism.

Stern writes, “Olen doesn’t fault the financial writers of the mainstream media (a point that I found comforting), though she sometimes portrays us as cockeyed optimists, persisting in offering financial advice, year after year, even though there is scant evidence that it does any good.

“At least, she says, financial journalists aren’t taking payola to push products. ‘We can’t accept a cup of coffee without being accused of conflict of interest,’ she told me. Olen had been a personal finance columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

“She says no personal finance or investment scheme can fully protect people from downward spirals or plain bad luck. ‘For that we need family, friends and, finally, the government, the … enforcer of everything from the rule of law to insurer of last resort.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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