Concerns on Regulations

The legal restrictions make journalists’ activities hard. Miyashita describes about the influence of the regulation related to the stock market. When she tries to talk to the people in companies in order to get news, she notices that they hesitate to tell the detailed information about future plans or strategies before the announcement. She says “The people in companies are getting to be sensitive these days because of the incidents of the insider dealing problems and the stock market’s guidance for the companies to control their information firmly. It is getting hard to get scoops”.[14]

In addition, a journalist of Bloomberg also describes the influence of the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 (which is also known as ‘The Sarbanes – Oxley Act’) in the United States, however it is little impact to the business/financial journalism.

S) “We were very afraid when the Serbanes – Oxley registration went through in America, that we would not get access to the more information because the SCC rules are getting very strict”.

I) Yes, because of Enron, Livedoor…

S) “Yeah, Enron. And Livedoor now. But actually it hasn’t had any real impact on this, getting the news. It doesn’t seem to”.

I) It’s not difficult?

S) “It’s actually not more difficult. We thought it would be but it has not been so, um, people still leak news”.

(S: a journalist of Bloomberg, I: the researcher)

He also indicates some regulation is necessary. For example, regulation which encourages disclosing will be significant for the next five years. Without it, lack of transparency will block the activity of business/financial journalism.

“I do think, I suppose globally in the future, we will be dealing more with, say Chinese companies, Eastern European companies, Middle Eastern companies, and some Russian companies, and until now have not be needed to be transparent and suddenly they have been told ‘oh you have to release any and tell people’ and they haven’t had shareholders so they don’t understand”.

Routine

When the number of journalists is less than the amount of pages to fill in, the journalists feel pressure to collect information to write as news. Inatome who had once worked for Nikkei and Bloomberg points out this as a problem because it is easy to create the situation that the journalists can rely on them.

“On the one hand, the start-up companies or the venture business people especially use Nikkei as a tool or the media for free advertisement to raise money for their business through giving new information. On the other hand, the journalists of Nikkei have a routine to fill the pages with articles so they tend to jump at the new information from those companies. They never refuse to write the information as news because of this pressure”.[15]

Once the article about the company’s business information is published, there will be a possibility to increase the investment toward the company. The journalists are also happy to have the information because they can fill the pages. This type of routine makes a journalist embarrassed. Miyashita says “Everything at my workplace is about the supply and the demand”. She has been asked to write something on the pages to fill in even though she judges it is not newsworthy.

In addition, the routine may grab the chances to get scoops more from the journalists, because they cannot concentrate on building their own networks to obtain information and scrutinising certain issues which they are interested in. Scott confesses “I wouldn’t have the time really” to investigate something because of his routines to fill pages.

“I think you just have to realise you can’t, you know. You have to know where your limitation is, and so, if it would something that needed a lot of research, I will have to ask somebody else to maybe take it all and [be] getting involved of it, because my priority, number one priority is to fill these pages, that’s my number one, you know, what I’m told I have to do”.

Unfairness

Kazuyuki Sasaki, the chief editor of IT Media, a Japanese Internet website which provides the news on the areas of information technologies talks about the unfairness in terms of the competition with other media to get scoops. In other words, there is a monopoly of one particular business/financial media, and this creates the lack of fair competition to get information from the companies exclusively.

“I don’t think it is fair. The companies always leak some information to the business/financial media like Nikkei before the official announcement. I can see the flow which starts the exclusive article on Nikkei and the company officially announces the fact later. The companies generally understand the impact of Nikkei ’s articles after they leak the information. I am not saying this flow of information violates something, but I don’t think it is healthy situation”.[16]

5-3. The Reason Why Business/Financial Journalism Failed to Detect The Frauds such as Enron and WorldCom

Enron and World Com are the problem on disclosure. Why business/financial journalism could not detect this and failed to warn the public before the things happened? Bogler points out that the journalists were “too uncritical”. The people in Enron or World Com “wanted to cheat” the journalists. However, he also admits that “it is difficult” to detect this type of fraud. Dawkins says the governance of Enron was “superb”, so it is significant to keep asking the basic questions.

S) “In fact, the best way to conceal of fraud is to run the company that appears to be very well governed. That was the case of Enron. The governance standard of Enron was superb”

I) How do you think about the financial journalism role at that time?

S) “Poor. It was poor. Nobody detected it. No financial newspapers stood back and asked the basic questions. The standard of reporting was weak”.

(S: William Dawkins, I: the researcher)

Dawkins also emphasises that “Risk is a part of the capitalism and it’s a part of the service of the good journalist to detect risk. Just point it out. You don’t need big judgement, just reported”. The corporations have nature to commit to risks even though there are legal restrictions.

S) “It always happens these days. Risk is the part of the capitalism system. If you don’t take risk you cannot make profits, you cannot make business”.

I) That’s how it goes.

S) “Yes. Now, the government tries to compensate for that. I, putting in place strong rules of governance. But however the strong your governance rules are, companies will take risks, and people will sometimes be dishonest, however good your rules are, frauds will happen. And it is always getting to be impossible for those to detect well organised or conceal the fraud.

In addition to the frauds, business/financial journalism tend to ride on the trend without in-depth scrutiny. Dawkins talks about the ‘New Economy’ in the United States as the example. He insists the necessity to have courage to warn the public.

“How many people wrote the height of the Internet bubble? That… A large number of these companies is going to go bust so that basic rules of the business that you must make profit survive. We’ll still the same. People were writing a lot of rubbish about the new economy, and how the digital world reinvents our business. It was all rubbish. How many people have the courage, stand up and say, ‘well… these businesses is not going to make a profit’ and they collapsed, aren’t they?”

Power of PR

Another problem is the rise of in-house PR department and PR industry. The PR provides only one side of the story which is favourable for the companies. One Tokyo-based equities reporter for a large international news organisation talks that the PR people have a huge power to allow the journalists to have interviews with executives.

S) “Now, the public relations have a power much more than journalists. We cannot write anything until we can confirm it, and when the PRs deny the information which I get, I cannot write it soon. In addition, there are as many news organisations as the PRs like”.

I) Can you talk to the executives or the people in management team directly?

S) “They never tell the telephone number at all. They never accept the private meeting in their houses. I maybe not aggressive but I am thinking that there is no way to win the race with other big business/financial news organisations”.

(S: the reporter, I: the researcher)

Scott points out that “it’s not easy when I have to fill all this space. I ‘m very reliant on PR companies, [which are] telling me things. Now they are all putting a spin on it”. At that same time, he also understands what the PR people do not bring to him.

“What you don’t find, of course, from PR companies, what you don’t get is the negative stories. They never tell you when the company is sucking people, laying people off, they never tell you when the company is in trouble financially, so you have to use your a lot of contacts for that”.

A journalist of Bloomberg points out that the inexperienced reporters have a risk to suffer from pressure from the people in the PRs.

“It’s always the danger for young reporters that they are reporting for the sources. So we are always telling the people, ‘you are writing for five billion people in the world. You’re not writing for the PR guy or that company’. You know. But it’s hard to stand back because of course the pressure from the companies”.

Tali Kramer, an account Director of Weber Shandwick actually says she will avoid to contact with the journalist who writes the bad article “because it’s no worth it”. She says her job is to “bear to get no negative coverage”.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14