The Political Content of British Economic, Business and Financial Journalism

A Deficit of Perspectives

Gary James Merrill

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030040123
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book assesses the extent to which British news organizations gave exposure and credence to different political interpretations of economics and business news in the decade before the 2008 Financial Crisis. Through the content analysis of some 1, 600 news items, this study provides compelling empirical evidence to inform often theoretical debates about neoliberal assumptions in the media. In each of the three pre-2008 case studies – economic globalization, private finance and public services, and Tesco – Merrill finds that the Telegraph, The Times, the Sunday Times and, to varying extents, the Guardian-Observer and the BBC gave limited exposure and credence to ideas from the left of the political spectrum. As such, he builds an important comparative picture of economic, business and financial journalism in the period before the defining event of the decade, the effects of which continue to resonate.

© The Author(s) 2019

Gary James MerrillThe Political Content of British Economic, Business and Financial Journalismhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04012-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Nature and Nurture of EBF Journalism

Audiences, History, Production, Sources, Political Economy and Content

Gary James Merrill¹

(1)

University of Roehampton, London, UK

Gary James Merrill

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Although journalism’s role in the 2008 Financial Crisis certainly sparked renewed interest from academics, the corpus remains underdeveloped and there are many opportunities for scholarly analysis. To gain a fuller understanding of EBF (economic, business and financial) journalism , therefore, the more recent studies need to be synthesised with the somewhat sparse and disjointed research prior to the Crisis. Hence, this chapter describes, evaluates and aggregates existing work in the sphere of EBF news. Because of the relative shortage of British academic studies, this chapter also includes international research, and contributions from news media practitioners to help gain a fuller picture.

As will become apparent, there is a paucity of detailed studies of the sociology of EBF journalism and there has been no ethnography, nor any wide-reaching analysis, that comes close to matching the depth, range and influence of the classic works in other areas of British journalism.¹ Indeed, there is a considerable body of work in the sociology of journalism , but it would be impossible to give a comprehensive summary within the limits of this chapter. Instead, by using a sociological framework of analysis, this chapter concentrates on subsets of the grand corpus with the view of augmenting the EBF-focussed work. Hence, assuming theories that have been developed in the context of general journalism may be equally relevant to EBF news, this chapter will help identify the focus of this book.

The first section discusses research related to the audiences of EBF news. The next gives a brief overview of the history of EBF journalism and considers how it has delivered on the needs of the general public at key moments. The third section focusses on factors that influence the production of EBF news. The fourth concentrates on sourcing patterns, and the fifth covers political economy . The final section of this chapter turns the attention to the news product itself and investigates the political content of economics, business and finance journalism.

Audiences

Before embarking on the analysis, it is important to first delineate economics, business and financial journalism. Although they are interrelated and often cover similar territory, these are not synonyms, and there are considerable differences in their respective foci and audiences . Previous scholarly work, however, has tended to blur the lines and some researchers² attach the adjective ‘financial’ to all journalism in the broader field. Hayes (2014: 60) argues that it is difficult to differentiate and consequently, ‘business…has become the “catchall” term’. Shaw (2016) draws a distinction between financial journalism (focussed on investors ) and business journalism (aimed at the general public). For the purposes of this book, the acronym EBF will be used when discussing general studies, and for more specific work, the following categorisations apply: economic is concerned with macroeconomic issues (inflation , trade, wages, poverty, etc.); business relates to the activities of companies and industries; and financial applies to financial markets, investments and consumer finance reporting.

The lack of agreement in nomenclature is perhaps symptomatic of the historically low levels of interest awarded to EBF journalism (Gavin and Goddard 1998: 451; Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch 2009: 13). This neglect is somewhat ironic because, although EBF journalism might appear to deal in abstract concepts, the subject matters affect every consumer, employee, investor and citizen, and so accurate and engaging news is fundamental to ‘civic empowerment’ (Doyle 2006: 435). The EBF news media establishes ‘a community of economic discourse’ (Parsons 1989: 7) and plays a vital role in furnishing the public with knowledge of the economic environment which is a prerequisite of ‘democratic development’ (Corner et al. 1997: 91). Given that EBF news is anthropocentric—in that its normative function is to inform and engage people about their economic environments—the scarcity of audience studies is striking.

Most work is concerned with popular audiences rather than those who are deemed to be specialists, such as the readers of the Financial Times , whom have more interest in EBF issues and greater knowledge of related concepts. The most detailed analyses of audience understanding in the UK were carried out by researchers at Liverpool University . The Liverpool Project, as it became known, found that, despite the inherently abstract nature of the economy, viewers do engage with economic news but in a way that is ‘complex and ambiguous’ (Gavin 1998: 184). A related study revealed cynicism over economic data and, at times, sheer incomprehension (Corner et al. 1997) and Richardson (1998: 235) noted that some viewers were sceptical about news of unemployment: ‘the text is convincing but (the viewer) is not convinced’. This inconsistency—between economic news and people’s own experiences—was also raised in a comparative international study which discovered that Japanese and American TV viewers thought coverage of the economy was too negative, while Dutch participants thought it excessively optimistic (Arts et al. 2002). The net effect of this fracture was ‘disinterest in hard news’ which, the researchers believed, was ‘closely related to its content’ (ibid.: 2, 11).

In the USA, Wu et al. charted the complex relationship between recession news, the state of the economy and public perceptions. This comprehensive study³ revealed that these factors reinforce and influence each other, and the presence of ‘distinctive predictive relationships’ between the three (2002: 29). Although far from conclusive, this research suggests: a greater interest in economic news during downturns; public expectation is influenced more by actual conditions than news coverage; and the centrality of people’s own circumstances when decoding news. The findings were echoed in Schifferes and Coulter’s (2012) study of BBC News online in the post-Credit Crunch period—September to December 2008—which revealed a huge increase in traffic and usage of the business pages compared with less traumatic times. In addition to accessing more news in this period, audiences actively sought out further information, particularly from blogs of senior journalists. A related audience study found that only half of the British public were satisfied with the coverage of the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis , and a similar proportion expressed ‘a deep-seated mistrust’ of business journalists’ objectivity. There was also:

scepticism about their motivation and use of sources and a belief that they are out of touch with the needs and wants of the general public. (Schifferes 2015: 156)

With some notable exceptions, much audience research is somewhat dated and tends to be rather pessimistic. Two British studies, however, suggest some grounds for optimism. In his 2007 analysis, Neil Gavin found that economic news does not have a uniform effect on audiences: ‘only some people, some of the time, pay attention’, and among newspapers, the effect on the reader is rather weak and inconsistent (Gavin 2007: 175). But, in terms of presenting balanced, engaging and informative reports about the economy, the broadcast media are: ‘more than just holding the line against the corrosive forces that assail the modern media’ (ibid.: 4). Also in 2007, Alan Budd’s report on the impartiality of BBC business reporting found that the Corporation was regarded by audiences as a trusted source of accurate, relevant and balanced business news. It also revealed that those most interested in BBC business news were middle-aged men in the ‘AB social class’ and other groups (e.g. young people and women) had low levels of engagement (Budd 2007). This study—and others—highlighted another challenge for EBF journalisms: namely, matching content with the needs of a heavily segmented audience (Knowles et al. 2017; Peston in Smith 2008).

Some studies show that audiences will engage with EBF news in certain circumstances, but overall the research suggests British economic and finan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Nature and Nurture of EBF Journalism
• 2. Research Design
• 3. The Battle for Free Trade
• 4. Union Canutes Cannot Halt PFI
• 5. How Sinful Is Your Shopping Basket?
• 6. Summary and Discussion
• Back Matter