When a company’s shares climb or fall in the stock market, a currency pair fluctuates in value or a commodity’s price goes up or down, news of these events has a direct impact on the financial health of people who have invested in them. For this reason, corporate and internal comms teams are increasingly taking the skills and principles of journalism and using them to take their business news to the next level.
The term ‘corporate’ suggests that a media outlet is owned by a company, which may have its own economic and political interests and philosophies that influence how it reports news or writes opinion pieces. Corporate ownership often means that the pursuit of truth is given less priority than profit and other commercial concerns.
This is a big concern when it comes to local news, where the expense of running a newspaper or television station is borne by a relatively small group of subscribers and advertisers. This makes it particularly vulnerable to acquisition by corporations who can see the potential for making higher profits from focusing on more general topics that appeal to a wider audience.
However, with non-profit cooperative journalism on the rise and a growing movement towards unions among journalists, there is hope that the trend away from corporate greed in news may be turning a corner. Until then, it’s up to us to help expose the most egregious offenses and patronize the best independent sources we can find, so that they can keep fighting for the truth.
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