Why business journalism cannot be like sports reporting

Barbara Serra of Al-Jazeera takes a look at the failure of business journalism in covering the economic crisis 10 years ago and the challenges in covering business and finance issues.

“‘The media are still very obsessed with the issues that created the last crisis,’ said Gillian Tett, U.S. managing editor at the Financial Times, told Serra. ‘The one thing we can count on is that the next crisis won’t come from exactly the same area, it will be something else…there are other areas of our life where you have once again geeks in control of a technology that no one else understands.’

“Probing the culture of the financial press is central to any critical examination of its performance,” reported Serra. “In the years after the crash, critics on the outside and voices from inside the newsrooms pointed out some of the most problematic aspects of how the financial media operates. Since then, there’s been a lot of introspection by the media.”

“‘I think there is a strategic mismatch between much of journalism and the kind of world that we live in,’ explained Paul Mason, a former economics editor at Channel 4. ‘Business journalism cannot be like sports journalism. It has to ask the question, should this match even be being played to the rules it’s being played? Sports journalism cannot ask that of a football match. We must ask that of a banking system. Are the rules right? Are the players all crooks? Is the game futile? Is it destroying the society we live in?'”

To watch, go here.