Buchcover The Mediation of Financial Crises | Sophie Knowles | EAN 9781433152344 | ISBN 1-4331-5234-7 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5234-4

“This crisply written and compelling book does the business press the honour of taking it and its role seriously, giving credit where it is due, acknowledging the challenges it faces, but forthrightly and illuminatingly holding it to account where deserved. And it often is. The book’s historical and comparative approach, comparing coverage of the 2008 crisis to previous modern crises, provides vital context for the press’s buy-in to a deregulatory agenda and other pro-industry assumptions. And by comparing the press’s role in different countries—in the U. S., U. K. and Australia—it exposes how ‘group-think,’ as she rightly calls it, crossed borders and took over Anglo-Saxon newsrooms. And to her great credit, Sophie Knowles gets out into the field to asks the press for its side of the story, through qualitative interviews that add another essential dimension to the analysis. As we continue to struggle through a post-crisis world, Knowles challenges the press to do better—to marshal its formidable resources and talents to puncture the myths that got us here and to help build a more stable future. The Mediation of Financial Crises is a vital contribution to our understanding of the financial press and of the press in general.”—Dean Starkman, Senior Editor, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists; Author, The Watchdog That Didn't Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism

“Well-grounded and solidly illustrated with several case studies, Sophie Knowles provides a powerful indictment about the past history and current state of financial journalism. An incisive account that revisits what have we learnt since the financial meltdown of 2008 that almost brought down the world economy and that has cost years of austerity against the poorest in society. In a time in which financial corporate players are back to many of their ‘esoteric’ greed and unregulated practices, this book presents not only a welcomed reflection but an urgent call for action by those of us who believe in a better and more just society.”—Jairo Lugo-Ocando, Professor, Northwestern University, Qatar

“With the benefit of hindsight, Sophie Knowles is able to look back on the great financial crisis of 2008 to see how little has changed and why we still need investigative journalists to educate the public and hold companies to account.”—Anya Schiffrin, Director of Technology, Media, and Communications, Columbia University, New York

The Mediation of Financial Crises

Watchdogs, Lapdogs or Canaries in the Coal Mine?

von Sophie Knowles

In 2007-8 the world economy started its heady journey to recession. The Queen herself asked „why didn’t we see this coming,“ but it’s a question that remains unanswered. A decade later and it is still not clear exactly who is responsible for the crisis. The world has experienced the long-term impact of austerity policies on its welfare system and the political landscape is completely changed.

This analysis of the media that reported on this crisis and where it came from is long overdue. The media were responsible for warning the public—a role they failed in. This book provides evidence that journalists, like bankers and regulators, need to be held accountable. The Global Financial Crisis is a starting point, but it deserves a much wider context and explanation, one this book provides for the first time.

Looking at three global and pivotal financial crises, this book assesses the degree to which financial and economics journalists have played a watchdog role for society. It takes a long glance back from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8 to look at the (as it shows, gradually narrowing) content we have been reading in mainstream publications, and speaks to journalists in three countries to gauge the reality of the situation from the perspective of the newsroom.