Business narratives

I bought the Sunday Times today because by the time I went for a paper The Observer had run out. The business section has a couple of interesting bits in it - lots about the corporate governance battle looming at M&S, and something about the FSA's probe into the shorting of HBOS (basically they are having trouble proving anything so far).

But it's the commentary section that interested me the most. It includes some classic examples of narrative dressed up as knowledge. Get a load of this bit about the FSA and Northern Rock -

The regulator has to recruit top-drawer people who have the skills to police a financial environment that is becoming ever more complicated. These individuals must roll up their sleeves in the way that senior investment bankers do and engage at the highest level. That process is under way, but it has further to go. The negligence at Northern Rock was a failure of people, not a failure of the system.

If you don't think too much about it then it might sound like a reasonable bit of commentary. But read it closely and you realise that it's just blah.

The regulator has to recruit top-drawer people who have the skills to police a financial environment that is becoming ever more complicated.

They should recruit people who can do the job properly.

These individuals must roll up their sleeves in the way that senior investment bankers do and engage at the highest level.

The people they recruit should work hard.

That process is under way, but it has further to go.

The FSA should do what it is doing already, but better.

The negligence at Northern Rock was a failure of people, not a failure of the system.

Individuals make mistakes.


I don't means to single out any particular journo, since this sort of commentary is very widespread. But I do wonder whether we might get better business coverage if business journos spent more time writing news and less time writing commentary. So little of it seems to provide anything insightful.