Business News:
by Felipe Salvosa II
Business news can be boring stuff for most people. Straight out of university, even with an economics degree tucked under my belt, I found myself lost in a highly specialized field of journalism when I entered BusinessWorld, the country’s pre-eminent business paper. I could understand GDP, inflation, interest rates, and other basic economic data, but many words I encountered later sounded totally Greek to me: EBITDA, special drawing rights, put options, call options, return-on-rate base, consolidated public sector deficit. I had to study all over again.
Hobnobbing with captains of industry, crossing swords with policymakers, picking the brains of analysts and economists, business reporters often consider themselves a cut above the rest. There is some truth to that. They know what makes the economy tick, who is selling to whom, what moves the market, or where money is to be made. But knowing the concepts, understanding the theories, and being familiar with the technical mumbo-jumbo is just the first hurdle. The challenge is telling the readers why this business story matters and why they should care about the numbers.
After beginning to sound like an analyst myself, it took me a couple of years to realize that business reporters are supposed to help make people earn a living, tell shareholders whether their investments are worth it, and inform taxpayers where their hard-earned pesos are going instead of sounding intelligent or trying to impress. My hard-nosed bosses would ask: “So what? Who cares? What’s in it for them?”
After all, business journalism is still journalism—you ask questions, double-check the facts, get all sides of the story, follow the paper trail. You are not supposed to swallow press releases and alleged disclosures hook, line, and sinker. You have to confront technocrats if the numbers do not add up or don’t make sense. You have to tell readers the news as it is: prices are going up, the economy is teetering, or this company is losing money. The economy is growing, but poverty is widespread. Wages are up, but companies are laying off workers.
There is so much obfuscation around that “bad” news becomes “good,” ideology is peddled around as gospel truth, just any policy shift is labeled as “reform” when there is hardly any of it, and things are supposed to be good when they are really not.
The strong peso is an example. Few realize that the government, which still has a significant chunk of dollar debts, seems to be the only main beneficiary of the weakening dollar, while exporters and overseas workers suffer. The prices of oil and rice are going up—but do people realize that the government has been raking in more taxes than it had expected precisely because of inflation?
Indeed, the Philippines is a country whose economy is about to take off, but is held back by a huge debt burden and corruption. Debt payments eat up a third of the government’s annual budget; tax revenues are alarmingly low. There is little money left to spend even on vital services such as health and education. The country needs more resources to improve infrastructure, enhance the business climate, and hopefully win over more investments to create new jobs and raise incomes. Business journalists can have something to say about all this.
An emerging battleground is trade. Filipinos do not know it, but a lot of things have been committed to international organizations that would eventually affect their daily lives. True, freer trade has helped uplift standards of living, but there are consequences like the demise of local industries and the entry of cheap but substandard products. The economy is being opened up supposedly with our best interests in mind. Is that really the case? Hardly anybody is watching.
Come to think of it, business is really everybody’s business.
- Felipe Salvosa II is a sub-editor for BusinessWorld. |
