Incredibly, Credibility Is Now An Alternative Fact

Michael Hedges February 20, 2017 Follow on Twitter

Business and financial news outlets are distinct among information providers. They are many and varied; some international, others quite local. While many report news broadly, the key ingredients have always been facts and figures mixed with rumors sufficient to satisfy investors, shareholders, executives and all who watch them. All these outlets have struggled, some more than others, with digital competition. Credibility is of the utmost importance.

The New York editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) gathered for a special meeting recently - a “town hall” - with editor-in-chief Gerry Baker. "The town hall was arranged to have a open, casual conversation with the newsroom about a range of topics,” said a WSJ spokesperson quoted by Business Insider (February 13). “No topic or question was off limits.”

The “newsroom” wanted to talk about a crisis of credibility; specifically, if the special relationship between WSJ owner News Corporation principal Rupert Murdoch and US president Donald Trump is coloring editorial decisions. In recent weeks Mr. Baker chastized the use of “seven majority Muslim countries” in coverage of the Trump administration’s executive order, halted by Federal courts, curtailing immigration from seven majority Muslim countries. Mr. Baker’s preferred term was terrorist hotbeds. The term “lies” has also been questioned when referring to those infamous alternative facts. That editorial fine-tuning set-off some, certainly not all, WSJ jurnos concerned about becoming trumpets.

“Fake news,” said Mr. Baker to those suggesting softness toward the Trump administration, according to anonymous attendees reached by several sources, some daring to mention the far tougher editorial position on press freedom when similarly postured by the world’s best known dictators. He also reiterated that objectivity must not be confused with opposition and if folks didn’t like that approach they could leave. Nice. This past week (February 16) the WSJ headlined an anonymously sourced story of “sensitive intelligence” being “withheld” from the Trump White House on concerns “it could be leaked or compromised.”

Indeed, WSJ deputy editor-in-chief Rebecca Blumenstein, a 22 year veteran at Dow Jones and the WSJ, bolted quite unexpectedly a week earlier for the New York Times as deputy managing editor. Editorial features editor Mark Lasswell also split recently. Culture and fashion coverage at the WSJ has been vacated. Mr. Baker reassured the WSJ newsroom that staff reductions and changes as part of a general company reorganization were over.

Dow Jones, the News Corporation subsidiary that publishes the WSJ and Barrons, has closed several bureaus outside the US or is in process, reported Bloomberg (February 6), citing anonymous sources. Others will be “scaled back.” The WSJ Budapest bureau closing was confirmed by Hungarian online news portal index.hu (February 3). The Madrid bureau is dark. The lone reporter in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is gone. Dow Jones Newswire European operations will likely be consolidated in Barcelona, where technical support services employ about 300 people, and London, said sources.

Dow Jones & Company was founded in 1882 as a wire service for business and financial news, known now as Dow Jones Newswires. The Wall Street Journal launched in 1889. A few years later, statistician Edward Jones, one of the founders, rolled out the Dow Jones Industrial Average, arguably the most quoted US stock market index. Dow Jones was acquired in 2007 by News Corporation. The various Dow Jones indexes were spun into a separate joint venture in 2010 with CME Group, owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

The once successful business model for these business and financial news agencies selling specialized and expensive services to banks and financial services firms fell on hard times coincident with the 2008 Great Recession. Selling to individual subscribers became the alternative. Of course, advertising, once quite robust for these upper-crust outlets, has simply crashed with all the rest.

To a great extent business and financial news reporting is led by the three agencies in the field - Dow Jones, Reuters and Bloomberg - plus the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and the Economist on the publishing side and CNBC and CNNMoney on television. Those looking for business, finance, investing and economic news online can find all of the aforementioned plus websites of various publications and pure-play online portals like Business Insider. Add multiple regional and local outlets in every language. Getting a fix of business news is easy in this generously appointed category.

Niche markets are always interesting to big media houses. Dow Jones and French-language financial news publisher l’Agefi announced a “strategic partnership” to share content and, perhaps as important, staff for a new real-time French-language service targeting customers in Europe and Africa. “Customers are willing to pay for quality,” said managing director Philippe Mudry, quoted by Les Echos (February 16).

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