What was the role of the media, and of business journalism specifically, in the economic collapse of 2009?

Financial journalists cannot be blamed for the whole financial crisis, which shook society mostly as a result of common greed and disillusion. Nevertheless, the crisis does raise questions about the ability of journalism to report upon financial affairs in a way that serves the public’s best interest. In that perspective, the limits of financial journalism as we know it might have contributed to the crisis.

Financial journalism finds itself in a very particular situation in the context of the evolution of media. The digitally driven speed of the news does not allow much time for comprehension, let alone reflection. Such a 24/7 live reporting environment, combined with increasingly complex financial structures such as hedge funds and derivates, cause a structural decline in financial journalism where very complex issues need to be addressed and reported on in real time.

If some individual journalists did warn the world about particular aspects of the 2009 financial crisis, although none of them foresaw what has happened in its totality, economists, and for that matter, people running American banks and treasuries, have ignored the warning signs. So, is it a failure of the journalists not to have listened to the critical voices, thus not getting a glimpse of the dismal economic outlook?