Complacency & Collusion

A critical look at financial and business journalism and how it has suffered a loss of independence and agency due to corporate pressure. Complacency and Collusion focuses on the practice of financial and business journalism, giving compelling explanations for why big business needs the press and why the press needs big business. The growing passivity and changing bias of Western journalists is widely acknowledged. Across the media, in newspapers, TV, media and the internet, journalism is increasingly hollowed out by writers who are no longer gathering news but rather churning out unsourced information, PR texts and online snippets. Behind this dubious practice is an increasingly invested corporate sector whose stake in the mainstream media as a mouthpiece has exponentially increased in the last few decades. The book cuts through the misreporting that has occurred since the financial crisis and makes clear the inadequacies of articles in prestigious papers and magazines, such as the Economist and Financial Times. It reflects on what the growth and spread of complacent corporate journalism will mean for the future of a free media.