The Watchdog That Didn't Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism (Columbia Journalism Review Books)
Where was the business press, that part of the media presumably most in tune to American banking and commerce, when the financial crisis of 2008 was brewing? Why didn’t more business reporters sound the alarms? Journalist and media scholar Starkman draws a parallel between the recent crisis and that of 1929, when the business press was similarly myopic in its perspective. Starkman traces the early history of the business press, detailing the economic and social forces that resulted in the development of two different approaches, accountability and access. The early muckraking strain of journalism carried into the 1960s as the two approaches merged for a while, and the media took on the role of watchdog. Starkman details the impact of the trends of corporatism and growth of the Internet on American journalism and how the media lost sight of its role as watchdog just as the mortgage crisis began to unravel the financial sector. With detailed statistics, Starkman provides keen analysis of how the media failed in its mission at a crucial time for the U.S. economy. --Vanessa Bush