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'If for political reporters Watergate is the gold standard, the scoop financial journalists dream of is Enron'
We meet one sunny evening at a London pub, with people standing outside smoking cigarettes and drinking pints. He is in his late 20s, and, while showing no trace of arrogance, appears at ease in the world.
"If for most political reporters the Watergate scandal is the gold standard, the sort of scoop that financial journalists dream of is probably Enron. Isn't that what every journalist wants? To expose people who are doing something really bad and make sure they are stopped and go to jail?
"A working day in the life of this financial journalist? Well, actually, that can be quite boring I'm afraid. Every morning at 9.30am loads of data about the UK economy is released. Unemployment figures, GDP for this quarter, consumer confidence indexes, the sort of stuff that analysts and economists use to determine how the economy and individual companies are doing. My job is to condense that data into a short article, telling readers what is happening in the economy and why. As I am doing this, banks and analysts publish so-called 'notes' with their interpretation of the figures, whether they are reason for optimism or pessimism, higher or lower than expected. You may say they speculate how the markets will react to these figures. I am going through these notes, and I call round my own contacts, economists in the City whose judgment I have come to value.
"These 'notes' are a curious thing. Banks and analysts write them for their clients, but they also write them for us journalists. If we quote a particular analyst it makes him, his ideas and his organisation look really good.
"Investors are known to approach analysts on the basis of their being quoted in our pages – it's free publicity of the best kind. For me the notes are useful as a first take on how the figures of that day are received, and also for colour. If you write an article it helps the flow if can you stick in a quote or two. Of course, analysts know this, so there is this game going on. On the one hand the analysts don't want to say controversial things that turn out to be wrong and make them look like fools. Yet they need to say things that stand out if they want to have a chance at getting quoted.
"I like writing longer articles. Say unemployment figures show that the crisis has hit low-educated, white males hardest. Then I try to go to the place in the UK where the effects are felt the most. I talk to people, then use their quotes to 'head' and 'tail' the piece. I open with descriptions of the people and their lives for 'colour', as we call it. The statistics and analysis go in the middle, and at the end I return to the scene I opened with, for a final quote."
Joris Luyendijk
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