Blogger Felix Salmon tossed out the subject of whether a PhD in Financial Journalism should be created, apparently in light of the poor job done by the media in covering the credit crisis. Actually he notes that an ex Lehman Bros. executive is trying to create such an education track and Salmon threw it out for public discussion and it has been bandied about by media based chat rooms.
I guess my initial reaction is that this is too important to be left to academia. Several months back I wrote in a blog, “As an editor, one of the first things I tell my reporters is not to be afraid to ask questions when you don’t understand what a source is talking about. …Chances are most of the other people are also afraid to ask the simple question for fear of looking foolish or uniformed. In the end you get jargon and other nonsense being tossed about in boardrooms, congressional hearing rooms and business media outlets….”
I bring that up because that fear of appearing uninformed is the affliction of those who purport themselves to be experts not those displaying simple curiosity.
How many pension fund managers, investment advisors, regulators, CEOs, academicians, ratings agency executives, congressmen, presidential candidates let alone journalists failed to ask appropriate questions before putting clients, investors, shareholders, students, constituents, readers at risk or otherwise passed on their responsibilities.
While I have read many articles displaying an amazing lack of understanding of the current economic reality and particularly of issues regarding our niche of futures and alternative investments and agree journalists need to become better educated, I’ve seen more appallingly ignorant comments during congressional hearings coming from lawmakers. I know I would have asked more questions before signing a check for $700 billion. Treasury Secretary Paulson is on record just months before the implosion stating what eventually happened would not happen. So why should we attempt to hold journalists to a higher standard than those whose job it is to understand these things?
Yes, it is the media’s role to be watchdog but that job is best accomplished by asking simple questions and demanding reasonable answers. Remember the experts missed this as well.
A little over a year ago the Yale School of management put out a white paper basically stating that managed futures programs added no value and in utter frustration pondered why so many people continued to invest with commodity trading advisors (CTAs). This came out in the fourth quarter of 2008, a year in which managed futures was the only investment strategy (besides short sellers) that made money. One of the authors of the study was a director at AIG Financial Services. So much for the excellence of academia.
Sometimes the more educated one believes he or she is, the more afraid they are to ask simple elemental questions. I noted here before, “When we are presented with a crisis, an emergency that requires immediate action, that is when it is particularly important to ask those simple “why” questions. If, in fact, our very financial system was on the brink of ruin, then the specific details and reasons should be made apparent in precise detail. No vague warnings of impending doom.”
At least some in the media are belatedly asking these questions, while our financial and political leaders are patting themselves on the back for averting a disaster of their own making that by the way has not been averted yet, only delayed.
