Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and Its Role in Society

Recognizing the historical importance of business news in America's journalistic past, this book asserts that current social attitudes were set in place by 20th-century reporting on finance, business trends, markets, unemployment, governmental economic policy, corporate malfeasance, and—perhaps most important—the consumer. According to this analysis, breakthroughs in automobile safety, food and drug regulation, and public health were brought about by the scrutiny of the national press, and news coverage of the business response to problems of pollution, energy, and global trade remains critical to debates of the future.