Financial crash '08: BBC chief economics correspondent questions role of media to challenge 'broad' consensus

Hugh Pym, chief economics correspondent for BBC News, last night questioned whether it was the role of the media to challenge the 'broad' financial consensus.

Complacency was rampant before the financial crisis in 2008, Pym argued during a City University debate last night.

"We all forgot previous market crashes and assumed that the boom of the early 21st century was different. But is it the role of any of us to challenge a consensus that broad?"

Some of Pym's comments echoed his chapter in a recently published book 'Playing footsie with the FTSE' in which he argued 'We were all deluded. That's the long and short of it'.

"The media should have asked more questions - but so too should politicians and consumers asked more questions during the good times," Pym said last night.

Representatives from the BBC, Channel 4, Sky News and the Guardian faced leading economists and media analysts at the City University debate, to discuss coverage of the financial crisis, and mistakes to be avoided come the time of the next market panic.

Chaired by Professor Steve Schifferes, it marked the creation of the university's new MA in Financial Journalism which begins next year.

Financial journalists had an 'identity crisis', said Damian Tambini, a lecturer in media studies at the London School of Economics, who published a report on financial journalism in 2008. They were uncomfortable with acting as a watchdog for the public interest, he said. Political journalists however, he added, 'are much more at home with this'.

Editors in the financial press had worried more about delivering investment tips for readers than warning of wider economic risks, Tambini said.

Michael Wilson, a former business editor at Sky News, was defensive however: he said the demands of 24-hour news media brought a dangerous risk of 'human frailty' at a time when the market was extremely vulnerable.

He said: "If you want 24 hour news then you've to recognise its limitations. Given the circumstances I don't think we did too bad a job."

After the markets imploded, journalists tended to latch onto fluffy human interest stories instead of more substantive matters, the panel noted. Faisal Islam, economics correspondent for Channel 4 News, said the critical stories, such as the risks of the Government’s Asset Protection Scheme, were occluded by stories such as Fred Goodwin's pension.

"The media feel they cannot tell a story about a systemic event without putting a human face in front of it, even when putting a human face in front of it adds nothing except waffle," said Professor Charles Goodhart of the London School of Economics and a former Monetary Policy Committee member.

Alistair Milne, director of the centre for banking at Cass Business School, said the crisis had exposed flaws in the financial media about how they tell stories to business readers and general readers concerned about the value of their pensions.

He said: "The biggest weakness is a failure to think through carefully who they're trying to communicate with."

Gregor Hunter is a freelance journalist and blogger. He is currently a postgraduate student at City University London. He is @gregorhunter on Twitter and blogs at pinstripesandpirates.com.

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