Abstract

The objective of this article is to examine the nature and sources of this conflict between business and the news media, to analyze positions of both sides and to evaluate some approaches taken by various corporations and the news media to improve the quality of business news coverage. Finally, certain measures are considered that might ensure better public exposure and understanding of business's viewpoint on issues affecting business and social policy. Business charges against the news media can be grouped into three categories, the economic illiteracy of most journalists, inadequate coverage and antibusiness bias among newspeople. Other industry spokespeople and corporate executives have been equally vocal about the inability or unwillingness of the news media to give a fair presentation and exposition of their viewpoint on important public issues. Business complaints against the broadcast media are similar to those made against the print media, but sharper. Predictably, most of the news editors and broadcast media executives dismiss charges of businesspeople as unfounded. Some go so far as to accuse business of blaming the media for its own faults, of trying to muzzle bad news instead of correcting causes and of making broad generalizations about deficiencies of the media with no supporting facts.