XCity – City University Journalism Department Magazine 2010

City at the heart of credit crisis coverage

©Patrick Stahl

“Last September was the moment when the world changed forever,” said Kiran Stacey (Newspaper, 2008), a reporter for the Financial Times. “I was outside Lehman the day after it failed, trying to interview sacked bankers. The sense of destruction around Canary Wharf was almost as if a bomb had gone off.” By Hannah Hudson

The collapse of Lehman Brothers on 14 September 2008 marked just the beginning of the global financial meltdown. From the editorial assistant on a money supplement to the editor of a national newspaper, City alumni were among the journalists who were there covering the crisis.

According to its editor Will Lewis (Periodical, 1991), The Daily Telegraph was one of the first newspapers to treat the crisis as a world story rather than just a big business piece. He described it as “possibly the defining story of our era.

“This was more than just a few high profile bankers falling from grace – this was about real people losing real jobs and struggling with real debts.

“It was our job to translate an often baffling barrage of economic argument and counter-argument and make it intelligible and useful to our readers.”

At the other end of the spectrum, was Laura Whateley (Magazine, 2008). As the editorial assistant at Times Money, she saw the crisis from a different perspective. New to the job, she recalled how she was “thrown into the deep end, around what they were calling Black Monday”.

The crisis turned out to be a fast-track learning opportunity. “I had to find case studies – and there were so many to choose from,” she said. “I interviewed those who’d lost their jobs, pensioners now without savings and people whose inheritances had been affected.”

For Whateley, the most interesting part of the crisis was the realisation that other journalists, even those with years of experience, weren’t sure how to proceed. “There’s no real insider perspective. No-one seems to know what will happen next.”

So did the media exacerbate the crisis, as some have claimed?

Lewis shrugged off the claims as “frankly nonsense”. He pointed to The Daily Telegraph writers who warned that debt had reached dangerous levels even before the bail out of Northern Rock. “They were proved right,” he said.

“To suggest we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now if newspapers had given governments and the banks an easier ride doesn’t stand up. Banks, not newspapers were the ones who allowed toxic debts to pile up. The media would have failed in its duty if it had reported on the crisis in anything other than the robust and responsible manner it has done.”

Ian King (Newspaper, 1994) acting business editor, Scotland, of The Sunday Times agreed. “We’re reporting on the financial equivalent of a world war here. I don’t think there’s much evidence, during the last world war, of journalists being blamed for causing the death of British troops.”

What is certain is the effort invested by financial journalists. Whateley said: “Everyone at The Times was working bloody hard. Money went from a niche section to the front pages.”

Stacey reports the same levels of industry at the Financial Times. “Everybody was energised and excited,” he said. “For a journalist, it’s the equivalent of playing in the cup final.”

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