ARE THE BUSINESS PAGES BORING?

by Christopher Mackie

SquareOne Business


What would happen if the BoE refused BAE’s Triple-A rating on the basis of some dodgy CDOs or PERLS owned by a Non-Dom employee?

Well, let me tell you that the FTSE, the NASDAQ and the ONS might have something to say about it. And, FYI at the COB each day, every CEO is concerned with their OD, HR and KPI. And, as if that doesn’t take up enough time, all company directors love to check with R&D to ensure that the ROI allows for their core values to be facilitated. From VAT to ITV, the business world loves to abbreviate. And if they can’t abbreviate it, they love to invent some jargon to replace it.

Perhaps it is because everyone in a pinstripe suit is just so darned busy to be bothered by full names. Perhaps managing directors across the globe can shave valuable seconds from their working day by abbreviating every name that comes their way. Or maybe they can only remain upright and awake whilst poring over company accounts by inventing spurious allegories to make their business sound more interesting. Well, what would you rather hear – that a company’s new venture into Indonesia was a “major, success following a period of hard work in a difficult market” or that “management’s success in this pathfinder project is a real home run”?

It’s because of this fog of confusing jargon that the business pages of any newspaper run the risk of being viewed as dull, filled with esoteric rhetoric and obsessed by numbers ahead of stories.

At first glance this seems to be true. The business sections carry vast reports showing unit trust performance, or complicated tables displaying interest rate comparisons. Most will carry a graphic showing the stock market performance of the day, which is interesting and important to those in the know but somehow distant and irrelevant to most. There are stories about company restructures and gloomy pieces about underperforming bosses. Company accounts are examined and interpreted and tax regulations explained.

But, increasingly the business agenda is creeping onto the front pages, and our thirst for perceptive analysis increases faster than you can say ASAP. Ignore the detailed lists of pension fund performance or share price indices and focus on the stories. Most of them concern real people and the money in their pocket, and in the hands of a skillful reporter can be as compelling as the most devious politics and as dramatic as real hard news.

Far from being boring, the business pages deal in such Shakespearean themes as; deceit (Enron), incompetence (Northern Rock) and egomaniacal high folly (Societe Generale). But aside from the backstabbing and high drama of vast industry deals, coverage of the economy is vitally important to all of the UK’s citizens. As the world flirts with recession, and ordinary people begin to worry about their mortgage payments or credit card debt, they rely on trusted industry journalists to put things in plain English.

So, if you’ve managed to reach this point without resorting to a dictionary or a stiff drink and you feel like finding out who Fannie Mae is, look beyond the initials in the business sections and you’ll find some real gilt-edged stories.


Unlock the secrets of the business jargon here - Business Glossary