Does it matter if journalists don't understand economics?

michaels

In this piece it seems that the UK has guaranteed back-up electricity more cheaply than was expected.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38263177

The BBC journalist rather than seeing this as good news, sees it as a problem because redundant gas power stations will not be built.

In general does it matter that journalists in economics (and I assume science stories too) do not understand the concepts and thus end up giving equal weight to vested interests whether the facts support them or not. I guess ever since the MMR scandal this has always been the case?

TrickyTree83

Yes it does.

It matters that they don't understand a great many things and are able to peddle their own opinions as fact.

PasturesNew

Most journalists are paid peanuts ... if they knew more they'd be doing a different job.

To get somebody knowing more you'd have to pay them more as they'd know more, have more experience, etc etc.

Most journalists these days are just content rewriters churning out stuff for clickbait.

TrickyTree83

I have a friend who works for a large newspaper group at the editorial level.

He laughed when I appeared to be surprised when he said it's no longer about information and facts and about how many clicks or readers you can get. That this model has lead to the "click-bait" we see so often.

It no longer matters if it is factually correct, just that it gets people to read it.

MPD

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

It no longer matters if it is factually correct, just that it gets people to read it.

Leading to the divisive and toxic arguments we see in the USA and here where experts are no longer trusted because a complex nuanced fact just can't complete with easily understood rubbish.

TrickyTree83

MPD wrote: »

Leading to the divisive and toxic arguments we see in the USA and here where experts are no longer trusted because a complex nuanced fact just can't complete with easily understood rubbish.

Well, no, really.

I don't want to disclose the group he's with (for hopefully obvious reasons), but they have experts that support a particular position in articles and videos but they're partisan by design. A cut down version of what you see on TV when you get two people with opposing views on something like say the gender pay gap. Instead of the two views, you'll be given one, the "correct" one according to the media target audience.

They would rather do an article or video on something that the people who read/click on their publishing's will agree with and do their utmost to make it go viral in terms of social media to generate readers and in turn - revenue. And that's the bottom line. There's no objectivity to it. He tells me journalism is essentially dead, which is a reason why he moved from crime reporting into an editorial role as at least he doesn't have to trudge around trying to concoct a story by a deadline that the readership are going to want to read whether it has all the facts or not. And he can get home to his family at a decent time rather than be out "investigating".

Pennywise

I remember when Gordon Brown announced he was raising the higher earnings threshold for national insurance in one of his budgets.

The BBC were wrongly saying it was good news for workers for the rest of the day. Whereas ITV and Channel 4 broadcasts correctly said it would increase NIC deductions and cost workers.

That was from the BBC economics editor, not some junior reporter. Scary stuff!

vivatifosi

It's not just economics they don't understand, it's anything with numbers in. It could be economic (e.g. confusion between debt and deficit). Or it could be about finance, or pensions...

I remember when the head of RBS stood down, the journalist said that the deal wasn't that different, totally oblivious to the additional cost of retiring early on the same package.

Then there's basis points being mixed up with percentages..

Although more about the breakdown of quality journalism than financial journalism in particular, Flat Earth News by Nick Davies is an excellent book on the subject.