Big-Time Business Journalism Fails in Company Coverage

By Chris Roush
January 2, 2007

Don Mecoy, a business reporter for The Oklahoman newspaper in Oklahoma City, recently went to New York for a business reporting conference and came away with an observation that I think needs exploring.

Following his trip to the Big Apple, Mecoy wrote, "After three days of discussing business coverage with employees of Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal, I'm not entirely sure we're in precisely the same business."

As a former employee of Bloomberg and someone who appeared on CNBC several times back in the early 1990s, I agree 100 percent. And the differences between business journalism organizations in New York and other major metropolitan outlets and those in smaller cities and towns sometimes gets lost when those who talk and think about business reporting get together.

If you watch CNBC or read the stories that come from the journalists who work for the organizations Mecoy mentioned, a majority of what's covered is news from multi-billion dollar public companies.

Yet, public companies make up a small percentage -- less than 2 percent -- of all of the businesses in this country. Their employees are less than half of the total workforce in the country. So why do the major business news outlets devote so much coverage to these companies?

I'd argue that the biggest failure of big-time business journalism today is the issue of what companies we cover. Reporters like Don Mecoy spend most of their time writing stories about private companies whose size means they're virtually ignored -- with a few exceptions, most notably Wendy Bounds at the Wall Street Journal -- by the national business media.

Who's doing a better job of covering business news? While it's the major media outlets that get most of the attention and the national awards, I'd argue that the business reporters who work at the smaller papers often have a feel for what's important to their business communities -- and their readers. If they're doing their job correctly, they have a better understanding of the issues and concerns facing small and medium-sized businesses.

Yet many biz reporters at those bigger and better-known organizations would stick up their nose if asked to write about a $10 million-in-annual-revenue company.

Remember this: Every big, public business was once small and private.