Now What?: Business Journalism After the Meltdown
WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16
The mortgage crisis, which is costing millions their homes and has driven the world to the brink of an economic abyss, has raised difficult questions for the nation’s business press. Why was the public taken by surprise? What kind of reporting was missing and what kind is needed now? What are the lessons for financial journalism and what is its true purpose?
Join the Columbia Journalism Review and the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute for a panel discussion on the future of business journalism in the wake of the economic meltdown.
Panelists include:
• WILLIAM ACKMAN is a noted investor and founder at Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.
• BILL GRUESKIN (moderator) is the dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the former Deputy Managing Editor/News for The Wall Street Journal.
• JEFF MADRICK is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School.
• GRETCHEN MORGENSON is assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at The New York Times.
• DEAN STARKMAN is managing editor of The Audit, an online critique of financial journalism of the Columbia Journalism Review, and the author of “Power Problem,” a critique of business coverage in the runup to the meltdown, an article supported by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute in the current issue of CJR.
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January 19th, 2010 at 12:05 am
As I said in an earlier post,
Oh, sure. Everything is horrible. It’s easy to complain and point out the bad stuff out there. …
Let’s have less complaining and more workable, tried-and-true proposed solutions to specific problems.
One group that is actually working on that is the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, a professional association that helps build knowledge and skill in business journalism. They had a similar panel to the one here at their recent annual meeting in Denver. No doubt, the topic will come up again in Phoenix, at the next convention.
For more info: http://sabew.org
January 19th, 2010 at 8:28 am
The problem with business journalism is it neither has the knowledge nor the will to challenge the myths of the day. So, the editors and columnists will tell you:
1. The federal debt and deficit are “unsustainable.” (The statement is meaningless. The government can “sustain” any debt of any size.)
2. The federal debt and deficit should be reduced (They must be increased if the economy is to grow.)
3. The federal debt/GDP ratio measures the government’s ability to pay its bills, and is too high. (The federal debt/GDP ratio is a nonsense ratio, measuring nothing of significance.)
4. Social Security and Medicare could go bankrupt unless taxes are increased and/or benefits decreased. (Neither can go bankrupt, even were taxes eliminated and benefits increased, unless Congress willed it.)
5. The federal government borrows to pay its bills. (Federal borrowing became obsolete and unnecessary in 1971, the end of the gold standard.)
6. Large federal deficits cause inflation. (Since 1971, there has been no historical relationship between deficits and inflation.)
7. Our children and grandchildren will have to pay for today’s deficits. (Taxpayers do not pay for deficits or for any federal spending.)
8. Federal surpluses are more prudent than deficits. (Federal surpluses cause recessions and depressions. Deficits cause economic growth.)
9. In fractional reserve banking, bank lending is limited by bank deposits. (Since bank lending creates bank deposits, bank lending is not limited by deposits, but rather by capital requirements, only. A bank with zero deposits legally could lend millions.)
The fact that the media continue to mouth these platitudes, despite ample evidence to the contrary, demonstrates a sad laziness of thought harmful to America. Writers these days are more interested in who-slept-with-whom than in uncovering facts about our economy.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com
January 19th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I neglected to mention a 10th myth:
10. Federal borrowing reduces the availability of lending funds. (Federal borrowing actually increases the availability of lending funds.)
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell