1. An Uneasy MarriageJOURNALISM & ECONOMICS UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMY SUMMER 2010 EMILY DRESSAR STEPHEN DAVIS

2. The Rift Economics and Journalism collide Stewart vs. Cramer Famous analyst call "You know, you are the only financial institution that can't produce a balance sheet or a cash flow statement with their earnings," Grubman said. Skilling, laughing, shot back, "Thank you very much, we appreciate it ... asshole."

3. Who’s covering the economy? The industry leaders Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Financial Times Fox News, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg TV The Economist, Forbes, Barron’s, Financial Times

4. And the bloggers Major Media Blogs The blogs supported by major media outlets: David Geffen at WSJ.com, Fortune.com’s Apple 2.0 blog BusinesWeek.com’s Fine on Media BloggingStocks at AOL MarketBeat at WSJ.com Paul La Monica at CNN Money Independent Blogs 24/7 wall street www.calculatedriskblog.com paul.kedrosky.com seekingalpha.com Dailyreckoning.com GlobalEconomonitor.com (Roubini)

5. What are they covering? Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism

6. The Highs and LowsPew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism After accounting for 46% of the overall news coverage in February and March coverage of the economic crisis dropped by more than half And in July and August, it fell even further (to 16%). The clearest example came in cable news. Once the political battles subsided, coverage fell by about two-thirds from March to April.

7. A Typical Story: Banking, New York, Obama Top three stories: efforts to help revive the banking sector, the battle over the stimulus package and the struggles of the U.S. auto industry At the bottom: all reporting of retail sales, food prices, the impact of the crisis on Social Security and Medicare, its effect on education and the implications for health care combined accounted = 2% of economic coverage. Driving coverage: Actions by government officials and business leaders drove much of the coverage. The White House and federal agencies alone initiated nearly a third (32%) of economic stories studied through July 3. Business triggered another 21%. About a quarter of the stories (23%) was initiated by the press itself and did not rely on an external news trigger. Not driving coverage: Ordinary citizens, union workers = 2% of the stories Dateline: New York City Fully 76% of the datelines on economic stories studied during the first five months of the Obama presidency were New York (44%) or metro Washington D.C. (32%). Only about one-fifth (21%) of the stories originated in any other city in the U.S. Who’s quoted: When it came to which phrases and ideas reverberated most in a broad array of media, an analysis of some 1.6 million news websites, blogs and other online sources finds that the president dominated. Nine of the top 20 most-quoted phrases came from him.

8. The Business Model Media companies owned the news process News was expensive to produce The payoff was profitable Sold 2 things- advertising and audience Monopoly on the process The Internet breaks the barrier to entry and media companies lose exclusivity of audience and content

10. CORE SAVVY BUSINESS READER

12. MAJOR BENEFITS OF NEWHOUSE OWNERSHIP THIS COMPANY WIDE OUTLOOK PRESERVES THE QUALITY OF THE NEWSPAPER. COMMITMENT KEEPS OWNERS FROM “TAKING EASY ROUTE TO GETTING PAPER OUT” EACH DAY. THIS HAS ALLOWED EXPANDED COVERAGE AND CONTENT. PROVIDES COMMUNITY WITH A STABLE NEWSPAPER AND HELPS RECRUIT UPCOMING JOURNALISTS MAJOR REASON FOR SUCCESS “ WE ARE A PRIVATELY HELD COMPANY THAT GOES BEYOND A ONE QUARTER HORIZON.” SOURCE- CHUCK CLARK/MANAGING EDITOR, BIRMINGHAM NEWS

13. Who’s impacting financial journalism? Other News Leaders Robert Peston, BBC business editor. “For many months I was very concerned about the explosive growth of CDOs and I tried to explain them through my reporting. Doing so was a challenge, when even bankers creating the CDOs were unable to describe them in terms that make sense to non-specialists.” Matt Taibbi, Chief Political Reporter for Rolling Stone Michael Lewis, author, “The Big Short” Has been called “the best piece of financial journalism ever written.” Wall Street Journal news team: “The Financial Crisis: The Weekend That Wall Street Died” 10-article series produced by 15 reporters won the Institute on Political Journalism's prestigious Excellence in Economic Reporting Award for 2009. Coverage was detailed, dramatic, precise and contained too many revelations to count, said the judges

14. ‘Obscure, clubby and unhelpful’ “Finance writers and bloggers are often willfully obscure, tradey, impenetrable and even at times useless to any audience who actually isn't working at (or recently laid off from) a bank. Why are they so willing to abandon us when they should be explaining things to use more than ever?” Choire Sicha, The Awl blog

15. Why? Crisis in the system The study addressed the following questions: Why didn’t we know this was coming? Did journalists fail to scrutinize the financial system? Can journalists cover this continuing, complex story? In November 2009, POLIS, a joint public policy research project of the London School of Economics and the London College of Communication, released a study analysis the state of financial journalism in the UK and US

16. Why ? Speed: economic stories move quickly through digital means. Financial data is updated digitally, the advent of the 24/7 news cycle (cable news) Complexity: Financial systems and new products are increasingly complex (hedge funds, derivatives) Strategy: The rise of corporate Public Relations places more and more limits on information exchange

17. Why ? Sustainability: Lack of resources: The business of news has taken a severe hit resulting in less resources dedicated to reporting. Globalization: Markets are increasingly interconnected and globalised; shrinking newsroom resources have declined original international reportage. Blurring the Lines: Renewed debate on ethics: market manipulation? Who is a financial journalist?

18. Is this the future? http://vimeo.com/11139124 “Behind the Scenes” PLANET MONEY

19. Planet Money This American Life producer Alex Blumberg teamed up with NPR's Adam Davidson to tell the surprisingly entertaining story of how the U.S. got itself into a housing crisis. “The Giant Pool of Money” spawned more stories led to the creation of NPR’s Planet Money - a multimedia team covering the global economy. The Giant Pool of Money: originally aired May 9, 2008 on This American Life, produced in collaboration with NPR News

20. Planet Money http://vimeo.com/10864430 Original song from Planet Money “Bet Against the American Dream”

21. Moving forward Collaboration between mediums/reporters Use of new technology Growth of audience insight Journalism supported by foundation or government grants General assignment reporting morphs into specialization

22. Questions?