Some personal finance journalists need to join the 21st Century! Blog Discussion

Former_MSE_Andrea

This is a chat forum discussion on Martin's 'Some personal finance journalists need to join the 21st Century! Out-dated & Outmoded Review!' blog which you can read here.

ivyleaf

What can I say. except that I entirely agree with you Martin!

elona

Sounds like he is a glorified copywriter!

It is always those who know least about a subject who are most sneering about others!

bunking_off

I don't disagree with you for a moment that there are lots of money-related issues which are important and don't involve the markets. That's why this site exists and is successful.

However, I must take issue with your view "More people buy DVD players than shares, more people have contact lenses than investment funds". Directly, you may be correct. But how many people have mortgages backed by endowments? How many people have pensions, the future of which is directly driven by the performance of the market? More to the point, how much do people pay for contact lenses and DVD players a month compared to how much they pay for their pension?

I agree that personal finance goes beyond the markets, and a holistic view should be encouraged. However, you do your argument a dis-service by denigrating the importance of the markets.

MSE_Martin

Point taken bunking-off. Of course my point wasn't 'the markets shouldnt be covered' it was 'the markets aren't all that should be covered, and aren't even the main thing'. I do believe debt is a bigger personal finance issue than the markets, but i do get your point.

However when it comes to coverage of the markets, its rarely pensions and endowments thats written about. It's investment funds and share tipping. It's also important to note that this is about personal finance sections - the City pages of the newspapers, which are in every single day, cover the markets in great detail....

The money pages, even though often better read, come just twice a week and are often wrapped inside the cover of the City pages!!!!!

martin

zar

Funnily enough, when I read this week's Guardian money section I thought how good and down-to-earth it is in general, and also that it is closer in spirit to MSE then most finance sections in newspapers. On the whole I am also a fan of money box on radio 4. (I think I became aware of MSE through a combination of these 2 sources so hooray for them! :money: )

I thought the train fares piece was very interesting, particularly since it had happened to the journalist himself. I will certainly be triple checking my train tickets from now on - much more useful than endless data about shares etc. to most guardian readers at least. As you say Martin, there are lots of places you can go for that info.

To go off on a tangent, I think the Saturday Guardian's family section is also a great idea. In order to keep people buying papers it just makes sense to write about things relevant to ordinary people's lives.

Jays

reported
Jays