Fool's Gold by Gillian Tett

I just started reading Fool's Gold by Gillian Tett. Her new book traces the origin of the financial crisis to the growth of derivatives trading. Tett was a panelist in at the IPI World Congress in Helsinki. Here is a jot from my live-blogging of the panel discussion:

Gillian Tett, Assistant Editor of the Financial Times said she had noted the “inequality of resources in the business media in the past few years.”

“I felt I had a barrage of banks lined up with guns of public relations to try to dominate the public debate. Not just in terms of what was said. There were few of us in number. Laughably poorly paid. Many of us leaving business journalism to work for the banks. We are not owned by the banks, but we are dependent on advertising and exposed to the vagaries of the business cycle.”

“Fortunately, the past few years have shown the importance of independent media,” she added.

Tett made a number of other interesting comments as a member of the panel. I plan to update this post when I finish reading her book.