the kicker

Now What?

Business journalism after the meltdown
June 5, 2009

UPDATED JUNE 17, 2:30 p.m.

CJR‘s panel on business journalism last night was excellent, if we do say so ourselves. An overflow crowd jammed the World Room of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to see the august panel listed below make some important points about what’s wrong with business news and how to fix it.

Our thanks to the panel and to everyone who showed up.

We have video, embedded at the bottom of this post, but the audio is not so excellent. We are working on it. But for now, put on headphones and turn up the volume, and you’ll be able to make most of it out. Updates to follow.

Now What?: Business Journalism After the Meltdown

A CJR event: Tuesday, June 16

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The mortgage crisis, which is costing millions their homes and has driven the world to the brink of an economic abyss, has raised difficult questions for the nation’s business press. Why was the public taken by surprise? What kind of reporting was missing and what kind is needed now? What are the lessons for financial journalism and what is its true purpose?

Join the Columbia Journalism Review and the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute for a panel discussion on the future of business journalism in the wake of the economic meltdown.

Panelists include:

• WILLIAM ACKMAN is a noted investor and founder at Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.

• BILL GRUESKIN (moderator) is the dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the former Deputy Managing Editor/News for The Wall Street Journal.

• JEFF MADRICK is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School.

• GRETCHEN MORGENSON is assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at The New York Times.

• DEAN STARKMAN is managing editor of The Audit, an online critique of financial journalism of the Columbia Journalism Review, and the author of “Power Problem,” a critique of business coverage in the runup to the meltdown, an article supported by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute in the current issue of CJR.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16

WHERE: The World Room, Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, 116th and Broadway, New York.

The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.