My, What A Surprise
Every once in a while, the opening sentence of a news article sends me into gales of laughter. One such sentence in an article in today's NY Times had that effect even before my first cup of coffee:
One of the trickiest things for a news organization to do is cover itself.
Ah, the irony!
The article then moves on to detail some rather tricky decision making on the part of the Wall Street Journal's top editor:
That was the situation some editors at The Wall Street Journal found themselves in last month when they learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was making a $5 billion bid for The Journal’s parent, Dow Jones, at least a week before the news broke elsewhere.
It was one of the biggest business news events of the year, the kind that The Journal would typically pursue aggressively. But Paul E. Steiger, the paper’s top editor who knew of Mr. Murdoch’s offer, decided not to publish any news of it, according to people inside of Dow Jones who were briefed on the situation.
As a result, The Journal was beaten on its own story when the bid was first reported last Tuesday on the financial news channel CNBC; The Journal posted its version soon after. That day, Dow Jones’s stock rose to $58.47, a gain of more than 50 percent.
It is not unusual for senior editors at news organizations to balance their corporate and editorial roles when faced with these kind of decisions. But one unusual aspect of this story was that some investors may also have learned about the deal before the news broke, and traded on that information. [Emphasis added]
When editors "have to balance their corporate and editorial roles", the free flow of information which is supposed to be the hallmark of a free press has already been lost. That balance is no balance at all. The corporate bottom line is always the winner. It certainly was in this case. What is particularly galling is that Andrew Ross Sorkin and Richard Perez Peca, the reporters responsible for the NY Times article cited above, don't appear to understand just what the fundamental issue actually is. If they had, perhaps the following question from their article would have been framed differently:
Still, The Journal’s decision raises a nettlesome issue for the media: What are a news organization’s obligations to report important market-moving news about itself or its parent company before the news is officially disclosed?
Maybe that opening line wasn't so funny after all.
One of the trickiest things for a news organization to do is cover itself.
Ah, the irony!
The article then moves on to detail some rather tricky decision making on the part of the Wall Street Journal's top editor:
That was the situation some editors at The Wall Street Journal found themselves in last month when they learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was making a $5 billion bid for The Journal’s parent, Dow Jones, at least a week before the news broke elsewhere.
It was one of the biggest business news events of the year, the kind that The Journal would typically pursue aggressively. But Paul E. Steiger, the paper’s top editor who knew of Mr. Murdoch’s offer, decided not to publish any news of it, according to people inside of Dow Jones who were briefed on the situation.
As a result, The Journal was beaten on its own story when the bid was first reported last Tuesday on the financial news channel CNBC; The Journal posted its version soon after. That day, Dow Jones’s stock rose to $58.47, a gain of more than 50 percent.
It is not unusual for senior editors at news organizations to balance their corporate and editorial roles when faced with these kind of decisions. But one unusual aspect of this story was that some investors may also have learned about the deal before the news broke, and traded on that information. [Emphasis added]
When editors "have to balance their corporate and editorial roles", the free flow of information which is supposed to be the hallmark of a free press has already been lost. That balance is no balance at all. The corporate bottom line is always the winner. It certainly was in this case. What is particularly galling is that Andrew Ross Sorkin and Richard Perez Peca, the reporters responsible for the NY Times article cited above, don't appear to understand just what the fundamental issue actually is. If they had, perhaps the following question from their article would have been framed differently:
Still, The Journal’s decision raises a nettlesome issue for the media: What are a news organization’s obligations to report important market-moving news about itself or its parent company before the news is officially disclosed?
Maybe that opening line wasn't so funny after all.
Labels: Free Press
posted by Diane at 3:35 AM
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