Categories: OLD Media Moves

Why the country needs more economic reporting

Felix Salmon of Reuters notes that a recent Gallup/First Amendment Center poll shows that 40 percent of Americans think that there needs to be more reporting on President Obama’s economic policies — the highest of any policy — and discusses the problems with such coverage.

Reuters writes, “Firstly, the question asks not about what Americans think of reporting on the economy, but rather what Americans think about the reporting on policies and practices of the Obama administration as they relate to the economy. Historically, reporters who understand economics and finance have generally been in New York rather than Washington — while the Wars and Terrorism reporters have been in Washington all along. But if you’re reporting on the Obama administration’s economic policies, you need to be in DC. The move to DC is happening, but it maybe not happening as quickly as the public would like.

“Secondly, the simple fact is that the Obama administration has been much less good at communicating its economic policy than it has been at communicating its policies on other matters. Tim Geithner is not a great communicator, and the administration’s economic policy in general is very complex: it’s hard to reduce it to a simple choice like ‘Afghanistan: stay or go,’ or ‘Healthcare: should there be a public option or not.’

“More generally, I think the answer to the question is simply a function not of the quality of reporting on the economy, but just of the degree of confusion and anger that Americans have when they look at what has happened over the course of the Great Recession. That’s something that the news media can attempt to address, but it’s a very tough job, and they’re certain to fail with a large amount of Americans a large amount of the time. For all we know, this 40% figure is actually much lower than might be expected given the depth and complexity of the recession.

“Still, I hope that the news media will use the results of this poll to increase the quantity and quality of their economic reporting.”

Read more here.

Recent Posts

NPR seeks a tech reporter in San Francisco

NPR seeks a Technology Reporter who will focus on how the tech industry shapes our lives…

4 hours ago

SABEW starts retiree membership, benefits

The Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing has launched a retiree membership. A retiree…

5 hours ago

How the FT connects with consumers

Tim Healy of The Drum interviewed Fiona Spooner, the managing director of consumer revenue at…

5 hours ago

SpaceNews hires Gruss as chief content and strategy officer

Mike Gruss, the former editor in chief of Defense News, has been hired as chief…

11 hours ago

Marfil among the WSJ layoffs in DC

Jude Marfil, newsroom operations manager for The Wall Street Journal in its Washington office, was…

1 day ago

Greene departing Cointelegraph

Tristan Greene, deputy U.S. news editor at cryptocurrency news site CoinTelegraph, is leaving next month…

1 day ago