The Vancouver Scrum

On the move!

Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.

Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.

Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!

—Ian King, December 13, 2004

Sunday, September 29, 2002

 
Former biz reporter Philip Longman's article in The Washington Monthly is a comprehensive and scathing look at the conflicts that the business press faced in the "bubble economy." Not only does he share with readers the failings of the business press, but he also offers a prescription of sorts on how to fix its problems.

Here's an excerpt:

What will it take to fix business journalism? Not advertising-driven features on celebrity CEOs and flash-in-the-pan start-ups, or financial advice based on conflicted sources. As Fortune writers did in the '30s and '40s, today's business journalists will have to rebuild their credibility the old-fashioned way, by talking to sources at all levels, including customers, competitors, and loading-dock hands, and by paying far less attention to stock analysts and CFOs. If such investigations uncover malfeasance, then that's a story. But even if a company like Enron had been squeaky clean, a talented writer--given enough time and access--could have written a fascinating account of its corporate culture and business methods. Fortune once published detailed profiles of stodgy companies like the Southern Pacific Railroad just because they played a key role in the American economy and reflected many larger trends, not because they had a flashy CEO, a rising stock price, or some other kind of "news energy."
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