Brummer and Peston question lack of reporting on economic crisis in new book
Leading journalists and academics ask if there was too much 'footsie with the FTSE' in build-up to crash
– 1 min read
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The BBC's Robert Peston, the Daily Mail's Alex Brummer, the Banker's Brian Caplen and 15 other leading journalists and academics will try to answer why so few journalists predicted the global economic crash of 2008 in a new book published this month.
'Playing too much Footsie with the FTSE?' - a book issue of the Ethical Space journal - considers why many leading financial journalists and commentators failed to report on the biggest economic crisis in 70 years.
Journalism.co.uk will preview extracts from the book edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair: firstly the Daily Mail's city editor Alex Brummer, who defends the press in his piece 'Far from scaring people, the press were providing readers with reliable information'.
The 20 chapters include Peston's thoughts on paid-for online news models, which he suggests could curtail democratic debate; and an interview with Martin Lewis from MoneySavingExpert.com, who calls for more 'caveat reporting' to protect consumers.
Also featured are Howard Davies, director of the LSE and former chairman of the Financial Services Authority, who discusses the impact of declining journalistic standards on credit standards; and media commentator Peter Wilby's piece 'When business journalism gets in bed with the financial institutions'.
"Few saw it coming, fewer had the courage to warn of the financial tsunami that would hit us all. This is a salutary tale of what happens when reporters simply get too close to the reported and become cheerleaders instead of commentators," said John Mair, broadcast journalism lecturer at Coventry University.
