President's Message: A Vital Craft

Business journalism is important, a fact that a brutal 2008 drove home with a vengeance.

Newsrooms must respect, retain and nurture accurate business and economic coverage if they are to meet the needs of their readers and viewers in 2009 and beyond.

The financial world is not going to get any easier to understand.

The year started with a rogue trader costing his French bank $7.2 billion in trading losses and ended with a U.S. rogue CEO incurring a likely $50 billion in losses through his money-management firm’s Ponzi scheme.

In between, the economy, housing prices, the stock market, credit markets and major investment houses took a hard fall. The Treasury Department received a $700 billion blank check from Congress, banks and investment houses were merged, famous Wall Street names were erased and global trauma prevailed.

The lack of trust most Americans now have toward financial leaders and business in general dramatizes the need for accurate coverage of business and the economy in understandable terms.

There are wrongdoers to uncover, but there are also daily stories that must be reported accurately so families can make informed decisions in their homes and communities. There are new regulations and reorganizations to be explained. There is common financial sense to be imparted.

For the first time in our lifetimes, money is directly affecting Americans of every income level in all facets of their lives, not just one or two segments of the economy.

Retail stores, restaurants and car dealers beg us to visit them, luring customers with giveaways. Investors are afraid to open monthly brokerage or bank statements because retirement and savings accounts have tumbled in value. On the job, workers, who are attending a slew of farewell parties, are petrified they will be the next to lose their jobs or homes.

The media has also suffered, with newsroom after newsroom downsizing its staff due to the economy and changes in technology. On a daily basis we are saying good-bye to trusted reporters, editors and managers who knew their beats and cared.

Silencing those voices is a tragedy, but we must now deal with the world we have been given. Newsroom downsizing makes those business journalists still on the job more important than ever before. It also makes it crucial for management to retain this important coverage.

The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, since its inception five-and-a-half years ago, has had the privilege of training and informing thousands of journalists. We have seen the sincerity of their desire to get business coverage right and do first-rate stories.

The Reynolds Center’s Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism have shown us that newsrooms of all sizes in all sorts of locations can make a difference. From tainted goods to unfair property fees, from unscrupulous creditors to government boondoggles, the stories that won these awards have encouraged others to keep up the fight.

You have a tremendous opportunity. Uncover stories that have meaning. Encourage your fellow reporters, editors and managers. Be inventive in finding new ways to tell stories using technology. Work together with fellow reporters on bigger projects. Be brave enough to go up against the mighty.

We promise to be here for you in 2009, to help you make a difference.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism