Following the world economy’s implosion last year, the press’s role in the run-up to the global financial crisis, and its subsequent coverage of events, is being grilled.
The business press, in particular, is being called to account for why it did not see catastrophes — like the fall of investment bank Lehman Brothers — coming, and why it never pointed to the shaky logic of bundling what was essentially rubbish debt and selling it to investors.
Whole nations, such as Iceland, for instance, have come undone. How could the fourth estate not have sounded the alarm?
A lecture presented at the University of the Witwatersrand on Thursday by Anya Schiffren, acting director of the International Media and Communications Concentration at Columbia University, threw light on some of the constraints and serious weaknesses that the media industry faces, particularly in the United States — the ground zero for financial fallout.
A host of pressures, including ”pressure from sources, from the general public and from the transformative changes to the newspaper industry” combined to ”’manufacture consensus’ that ended up being supportive of mainstream economic views”, Schiffren argued.
Her research points to a profession riven by doubt. Some journalists believe they sacrificed their responsibility to readers on an altar devoted to the demi-gods of the business world — whether they be articulate analysts, charismatic stock traders or powerful CEOs.
Then there are the journalists, says Schiffren, who believe the press cannot be blamed: if economists, government regulators, bankers, the plethora of experts who were better placed to understand the dangers didn’t see it coming, how could journalists have been expected to?
For Schiffren, ”personality-driven journalism” was also a big culprit. The short-sighted celebration of leaders, in a bid to give a tangible, human face to the arcane business realm, resulted in shallow journalism that in hindsight got it all wrong.
As Schiffren’s research shows, this may be in part as a result of the lack of concrete skills and business knowledge on the part of many journalists.
It is easier — and indeed far more interesting and sellable to readers — to write about the man George Soros, rather than the infinitely complex trades that a man like this may undertake.
Journalists commonly rely, she argues, on the expertise of businessmen and -women, to dissect difficult subjects for readers, while unconsciously absorbing their ideological bent or position on issues and events.
And finally, all of this has been taking place as the newspaper itself is threatened, again most especially in the US and other developed nations.
Presses are going silent, leaving behind only the echoes of the last-remaining pennies in newspaper coffers.
The immediate nature of web journalism and new media is gaining primacy. Arguably more shallow, but infinitely more plural — and let’s not forget cheaper to produce — the web is forcing the re-imagining of a profession.
South Africa and other developing nations have, during the crisis, played the role of unfortunate bystander to a bomb — hit by flying shrapnel.
The role of the business press in South Africa during the crisis is even less clear.
Could local journalists have been expected to see a global crisis looming, especially one that started in the US? And especially given that local business journos’ expertise is gleaned, much as elsewhere, from sources who themselves were caught off guard.
But the examination that our colleagues are undergoing internationally is a primer for a host of parallel problems for the profession in South Africa.
As an example, how many of us saw the Eskom crisis coming before the lights went out?
And local journalism is beset by skills shortages everywhere — not just in the business realm. Our mainstream industry is smaller, yet spectacularly more concentrated, far younger and, of course, even less resourced than Western counterparts.
Here, too, newsrooms face the axe, and our broadcast powerhouse, the SABC, is in a shambles.
Schiffren noted that as traditional media die, the onus will fall on the reader to gauge what is true or not amid the plethora of messages.
And while the internet may be filling a gap in ensuring divergent views are aired, in a developing nation like ours, the web is almost irrelevant in that respect. The people most in need of the space to give voice to their concerns cannot access the web.
On both sides of the Atlantic, it is a bleak picture indeed. – Sapa