Press bias

TIGER OR PUSSYCAT?-- Should the press have been more diligent in warning of the economic meltdown of the last decade? Our correspondent across the pond wondered whether the media failed in its duty to warn of coming problems. He notes that there were sufficient warning signs of the looming disaster for the press to pick up and report.

He writes: "I remember there were a few reports of that nature, but the politicians and bankers and property developers dismissed these reports as meaningless.
"Someone even coined the term 'Celtic Tiger' to describe the Irish economy. For some reason those members of the press who read the signs correctly were not broadly published or believed.
"I know the press can be like a dog with a bone and work away on
something until all is revealed; one of the most famous cases is Watergate.
"Should the press simply be an observer, or should it also take on the role of watchdog?"

Here's my response:

To me, the press is both observer and watchdog. Your analogy of a dog after a bone is apt; I've used it myself, with the scenario being that a dog sniffs a bone somewhere and keeps digging until he finds it.
The problem with economic and business news is that many reporters think it's too hard, so they don't do it. They think the "real news" is on Page One, and those are the stories worth pursuing. I encountered that attitude more than once at the paper where I worked, with some very good reporters claiming that business news was "too hard." My response was that quite often, stories would appear on the biz page weeks and months before these stories would be "discovered" by the Page One crew. The same attitude was held by senior editors. Soon after I started on the biz desk, a story about real estate (my beat at the time) cropped up, and the managing editor wanted to give it to one of the general assignment reporters because it was a Page One story. Fortunately, the editor in chief, overruled the managing editor, saying that the story should be given to the reporter who knows the field best.
Another claim was that the style of writing for Page One stories was somehow "different" from business and economic stories, and required a different skill set. This, of course, is nonsense. Good writing is good writing.