Critical intersection

Prof. Müller, why a book on economic journalism? Why should we be interested in this topic right now?

With this book, I aimed at providing a systematic foundation for economic journalism. What is its role in highly differentiated societies? What criteria should we use to measure quality? How do economic narratives evolve and how should journalists and researchers deal with them? The economy is a central sphere of modern societies that tends to be underrepresented in reporting. When economic issues reach the wider public, it is often in a simplified, sensationalized form. This opens the door to the poisonous exaggerations of populism. This book is a plea for journalistic independence – in financial, intellectual, and ideological terms. Without quality business media as independent observers, societies and markets are hardly functional. Economic journalism is located precisely at this critical intersection.

To what extent do the quality standards of business journalism differ from those applied to journalism in general?

Business reporting comes with a number of additional complications. It’s essential that journalists are able to identify evolving problems at an early stage. Economic decisions are strongly future-oriented. Investors, for instance, need to grasp what to expect in years to come. Business journalism should provide nuanced and knowledgeable guidance in this regard. I know, demanding that journalists should write about the future, that is, stuff that hasn’t happened yet, may seem odd. Such a requirement runs counter to commonly accepted “news values”, that are typically event-driven. However, with economic developments there is often no clear, visible event. Even if that means that reports are only published when a crisis has hit. Economic journalism needs standards that enable forward-looking reporting. To this end, I propose the ESSF formula for this purpose. The acronym stands for Efficiency, Stability, Sustainability, Fairness. If one of these four goals is violated, there is reason for a story. If several goals are violated in a flagrant manner, a big one is justified. The four ESSF criteria represent an early warning system because violations of these goals lead to serious economic and social problems over time. This requires a more systematic approach to topic selection and research. The book also covers some of these practical aspects.

In the EU countries, the economy is largely Europeanized. Political integration is also progressing in some areas. But the media are still national. Does that still fit together?

Hardly. The parallelism of national media publics and open markets produces considerable political and social tensions. This is true internationally, but especially within the EU, where politics is also largely Europeanized. In the media, on the other hand, the perspective of the respective nation dominates. At the same time, a top segment of international top brands such as The Economist, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal is emerging, which are read across borders. There is a danger that we will end up with a divided public sphere: on the one hand, liberal international elite media, and on the other, national media that are susceptible to populist noise spirals. These would be conditions under which European integration and international cooperation would hardly be capable of gaining majority support.