Editors debate future of business journalism

By Pat Winters Lauro
Knight-Bagehot Alumni Committee

With discussion about CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo a major topic of conversation at business news organizations in the past month, here’s what some prominent business journalists said about the situation at an event held last week (Feb. 5) by Columbia University’s Knight-Bagehot Alumni Committee.
“Has she violated any rules for us?” said Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek Magazine, where Bartiromo writes a column every other week. “No.”
Adler said the magazine has “clear rules about what’s appropriate” and the rule is “that it’s never okay to become a vehicle for a company.”
Alexis Glick, director of business news at Fox News , which is launching a business channel this year, said in general that reporters need to “know the business you are in, and be smart about it.”
“At the end of the day, you have to be accountable and smart about your relationships,” she said.
Matt Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, the multi-media business news empire, said Bartiromo’s actions as reported in the press do not seem to have violated journalism ethics.
“If it was transparent for the purpose to gain a perspective of a newsmaker…that happens quite a bit…lots of reporters get on Air Force One to get a perspective,” Winkler commented.
The controversy about the CNBC news anchor centers on Todd Thomson, Citigroup’s head of global wealth management, who was fired last month in an executive shake-up. According to accounts in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, one of the events that triggered Thomson's ouster was his decision last year to make the corporate jet available to Bartiromo on a business trip from China to New York, which resulted in several other Citi execs being bumped off the plane. CNBC denied there was any impropriety with Bartiromo hitching a ride back from China on the Citigroup plane, saying it approved the trip in advance and reimbursed Citigroup for the cost of the flight.
David Lieberman, senior media reporter for USA Today, moderated the event.
The panel discussion, held at Bloomberg News headquarters, was called “Business Journalism: Buy, Sell or Hold?” and featured Winkler, Adler, Glick, and Joanne Lipman, editor-in-chief of Conde Nast’s Portfolio, a glossy business magazine launching this spring.
The panel addressed the future of business journalism in the digital era, and was sponsored by the Knight-Bagehot alumni committee, which promotes the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Business and Economic Journalism for mid-career journalists.
The panel concurred that with the wealth of data in the market, business journalists are needed even more to interpret and make sense of it all. Still, they acknowledged trouble ahead for the near future as the market tries to adjust to the brave new world of Internet journalism.
“There’s going to be a shake-out and a lot of news organizations aren’t going to be willing to pay for serious, expensive journalism,” Adler predicted. “We do. And we’re counting on it.”
Adler said ultimately the advertising market will adjust to the changes now taking hold, and that professional journalism will prevail.
“The commodization of business information makes deeper, more insightful journalism more important,” Adler said. “If you’re writing the kind of stuff readers need to know, but companies don’t want them to know, then they have a reason to come to you.”
Glick, too, said that although people want more information, the media landscape is changing dramatically.
“It’s an awkward time, with a tremendous amount going on in the Internet and layoffs in print,” she said.
Some growth areas? The panel suggested continuing demand for global business news (Adler said BusinessWeek continues to open foreign editions); demand for so-called “vertical” information, or information targeted to a specific audience such as small business owners; and, of course, important breaking news that is fast becoming the domain of the Internet. All of the panelists said they are committed to a strong online presence where they intend to break news. Adler said that for publications like BusinessWeek, the online edition now represents about 13 percent of revenue.