Former BusinessWeek Managing Editor Addresses Current State of Business Coverage

Mark Morrison is the retired managing editor of BusinessWeek, a position he held for 12 years. After being on the frontlines of business news for over 30 years, Morrison has now accepted a new challenge -- helping train the next generation of journalists. He will teach journalism at his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, starting in January 2007. Morrison is one of 13 journalism professors who attended the four-day Business Journalism Professors Seminar organized by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. We asked him about the current state of business coverage, challenges faced by business journalists, and what journalism schools in America can do to train the next crop of business reporters and editors. Click here for a Q&A that will give you a more personal look into the life and career of Morrison.

Q: Top executives think coverage of business is shallow, some editors acknowledge it's a low priority and professors think their schools do a poor job of teaching it. Where do we go from here?
It is true that business used to be the backwater of coverage with only a few media organizations covering it in any depth. Typical newspapers did not devote many resources to covering business. There was no real television coverage to speak of either, other than the nightly news reporting that the stock market was up five points or down five points.
That's history. Business journalism has been making big leaps forward. These days you have full-time business coverage on television, local newspapers are putting some of their better reporters on the business beat and giving the subject more attention and space. The Internet is full of business coverage. Almost anything you want to know, it's out there. Business coverage has really blossomed in the last ten years.

Q: Was the business press too much of a cheerleader in covering the bubble economy?
In the '90s decade of the dot-com boom, business coverage did become quite rah- rah about businesses. Reporters and editors were not skeptical about the fact that a lot of these companies were not making any money. The bubble burst was a rude awakening. The media were humbled by failing to pick up some of the hype and even fraud that was part of that boom. We mostly missed the trouble signs at the Enrons and WorldComs. But that also played a part in the business coverage becoming better. The press today is more skeptical and more demanding that the company show results before we write something positive about it. We have become a lot deeper with our reporting and analysis.

Q: A majority of what's covered by the national media is news from multi-billion dollar blue-chip companies that make up less than 2 percent of all of the businesses in this country. Why?
High profile companies like Apple, General Motors or Home Depot have broad followings and get high readership. They are also easier stories to do than finding that interesting story about a smaller business and demonstrating its urgency or usefulness.

Q: Does traditional business news need to compete with the spin put on it by bloggers?

There is a lot of blogging going on in the business beat. And that's a healthy thing. It increases the discussion of important business issues. It allows journalists to follow up stories that get lots of distribution. In the end, however, the educated consumer of news counts on the most credible media to sort through all of that blogging and come out with the real facts and best analysis.

Q: What are some of the challenges the new crop of journalists are likely to face?
One of the challenges now is the requirement that you not only write a story, but also be able to deliver it on many different platforms. Secondly, with the Internet everything has become so fast paced. Journalists today have to be very quick to report on things and bring good analysis to the news. Otherwise someone else is going to beat you to it.

Q: What should business journalism education focus on?
It should focus on understanding how business works and developing skills that involve working across different platforms, be it print, television or multimedia. But accuracy, fairness, and the highest standards are always the most important values.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism