Journalist Responsibility and Economic Meltdowns

Journalists do have a responsibility for economic happenings. That’s because media have a direct relationship to the effects of the economy on the public. They do affect public knowledge and all-important public sentiment.

We know media influence in print, as an example. The Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator actually tries to gauge the U.S. economy by weighing the balance of sentiment in articles published by 15 major American newspapers. The Indicator analyzes stories published. They look for key words that indicate changes in economic sentiment.

Whatever it is that journalism schools teach about journalism, they don’t teach enough economics. That’s if they have any decent economic study at all. Because that would entail a balance of conservative as well as liberal thinking on the subject. The results of the work of their graduates show a deficiency.

There are about 50,000 newspaper journalists in the U.S. alone, with thousands of published articles daily, Economics are integral to the news, especially finance and its effects on politics.

It shows that schools do not teach news balance. To enable journalists to know enough to screen what has worked and not worked economically in the past. And to avoid passing along political pap about the subject without critical oversight.