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Charlie Beckett

November 19th, 2008

Peston: "don't blame me"

5 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Charlie Beckett

November 19th, 2008

Peston: "don't blame me"

5 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

I chaired a virtuoso performance from the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston. He romped through the current economic crisis in a kind of 3D Music Hall version of his TV live spots.

It was all in celebration of his book Who Runs Britain but what we all really wanted to know was what did it feel like to be the most important man in British media? Does he savour the power to break banks and move markets?

Surely the facts that investment banks send email alerts to staff when he blogs must have an impact on his journalism?

Well, Robert claims not. He insisted that he really just does his job. I think that would be a superhuman achievement, and possibly even beyond our Robert. But although he is in a special position it is something that every financial journalist must wrestle with in some way at some time.

We have a new Polis report out on financial journalism out. Peston is in it and he was also good enough to read it and recommend it to his adoring fans. Go here to read it or email us a polis@lse.ac.uk and we will send you a copy (or copies).

There’s a very good post on the Peston event here by Jazamatazz

Here is Simon Jenkins’ more critical take on Robert Peston’s book.

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Charlie Beckett

Posted In: Research

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