BiblioVault - Books about Journalism, Commercial

Complacency and Collusion

A Critical Introduction to Business and Financial Journalism

Keith J. Butterick

Pluto Press, 2015

In Complacency and Collusion, Keith J. Butterick draws on extensive experience as a journalist and scholar to show why financial and business journalism is so often toothless. He offers compelling explanations for why big business needs the press—and vice versa—and presents piercing analyses of the inadequacies of reporting in such major outlets as the Economist and the Financial Times, showing how those failures are rooted in the close relationship between businesses and those covering them. He concludes with a reflection on what the growth and spread of a complacent, complicit corporate journalism will mean for the future of a truly free media.

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The Enforcers

How Little-Known Trade Reporters Exposed the Keating Five and Advanced Business Journalism

Rob Wells with a foreword by David Cay Johnston

University of Illinois Press, 2019

In the 1980s, real estate developer and banker Charles H. Keating executed one of the largest savings and loans frauds in United States history. Keating had long used the courts to muzzle critical reporting of his business dealings, but aggressive reporting by a small trade paper called the National Thrift News helped bring down Keating and offered an inspiring example of business journalism that speaks truth to power. Rob Wells tells the story through the work of Stan Strachan, a veteran financial journalist who uncovered Keating's misdeeds and links to a group of US senators—the Keating Five—who bullied regulators on his behalf. Editorial decisions at the National Thrift News angered advertisers and readers, but the newsroom sold ownership on the idea of investigative reporting as a commercial opportunity. Examining the National Thrift News's approach, Wells calls for a new era of business reporting that can—and must—embrace its potential as a watchdog safeguarding the interests of the public.

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The Future of Business Journalism

Why It Matters for Wall Street and Main Street

Chris Roush

Georgetown University Press, 2022

An eye-opening account of how the information gap in business journalism is eroding civic life and impacting the economy––and how we can fix it

Business owners, consumers, and employees have long relied on the news to make financial decisions—what to buy, who to hire, and what products to sell. In the twenty-first century, that news has shifted. Only the big businesses and executives can afford expensive subscriptions, while most consumers and small business owners are left scrambling to find the news they need to succeed and thrive. The Future of Business Journalism explores how the field evolved into this divide and offers solutions on how business journalism can once again provide the stories and content that a broad society needs.

In The Future of Business Journalism, veteran business journalist and professor Chris Roush explains the causes, reveals the consequences, and offers potential solutions to this pressing problem. Roush delves into how the crisis occurred, from the disintegration of the once-strong relationship between businesses and media to the media’s focus on national coverage at the expense of local news. He reveals how these trends result in major “coverage deserts.”

Roush’s proposal for a way forward shows how businesses, journalists, and media can work together to support the economic and financial literacy needed for an informed citizenry. He recommends that media organizations take advantage of technological innovations to provide better business news content, suggests that journalism programs require budding reporters to take more business courses, and encourages businesses to fund journalism school programs. This insightful overview of the current state of business journalism reveals its strengths and weaknesses and shows how Main Street can regain access to the news it needs.

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