Blood on the (Wall) street. LIVE!!!

Last week was a rough one. It was exciting beyond belief. I found myself double tasking the whole day for days (and nights) with one ear and plenty of glimpses on the Bloomberg business channel on cable, occasionally shifting to BBC and CNN for the latest in the drama unfolding in Wall Street.

This must be what they mean by blood on the street. I never thought I would find watching a business channel as exciting as watching an Ateneo-La Salle championship game. Bloomberg’s coverage had more punch and wallop than a Pacquiao boxing match and more drama and suspense than a telenovela. We are talking real money here… lots and lots of very real money vanishing in a poof as legendary investment banks and the world’s largest insurance company go kaput before your eyes.

Many years ago there was an attempt to make business news coverage here as exciting as sports. That was when veteran sportscaster Emy Arcilla started covering the stock market as if he was covering a horse race at Sta Ana or San Lazaro. I didn’t have money to bet on the stock market in those days so no matter how Emy tried to make his coverage exciting, it was all Greek to me.

Watching hours and hours of Bloomberg, BBC and CNN last week made me realize how far we have been left behind in the field of business reporting. Actually, this had always been my frustration and I should actually be happy we have made the progress we have achieved thus far, mostly through the efforts of ABS-CBN’s ANC operations.

When I returned to ABS-CBN in the early 90s, one of the first things I did was to expand the time allocated for business news in the evening English newscast, World Tonight. I gave business news a clearly defined segment that went beyond reporting how the stock market indices performed that day. I also assigned a separate news anchor, Ces Drilon, to do that segment.

Ces had to do extra work to learn the language of business, understand the needs of this special audience and make her report interesting for the lay man as well. Soon enough Ces gained the credibility to report on business. Other than Ces, the only other television reporter credible to the business sector was Veronica Pedrosa, who we assigned to cover the stock market trading live for SkyCable, another pioneering endeavor.

I was no longer with ABS-CBN when they finally upgraded our early efforts in an all news channel on SkyCable with what is now known as ANC or the ABS-CBN News Channel. Ces became the head of the business news desk even as she anchored a number of news programs including an all business newscast.

Ces called me one day to tell me about her assignment and asked if I knew anyone who can be developed as a business news anchor. I remember watching the stock market coverage that week which featured an interview with Ricky Carandang, a market analyst who I thought was just what business news on television needed. I suggested to Ces that she try him out. The rest, as we say, is history.

The problem with both Ces and Ricky, however, is that they apparently found business news too confining. Both have since gone over to general news, with extremely memorable consequences for Ces. What made Ricky great for business news is his deep understanding of business in his previous life as an equity analyst. While it is possible to train general interest reporters or mass comm graduates like Ces to become good business reporters, it takes time and a lot of effort. It is easier for someone like Ricky to quickly gain credibility as a business reporter because he already speaks the language.

There are at least two Filipino reporters who are doing well as anchors in business news programs abroad. One is Rico Hizon who reports out of Singapore for BBC and the other is Catherine Yang of Bloomberg reporting out of Hong Kong. The other international star, Rica Pedrosa, who started out as our business reporter and anchor at ABS-CBN, is now doing general news anchor duties for Al-jazeera out of Kuala Lumpur.   

Interestingly, Catherine Yang also got her training at ABS-CBN. I remember the afternoon Cathy Yap (as she was known then) came to my office, fresh from college and raring to be an anchor. Gabby Lopez sent her over to be interviewed for a possible job in our news gathering team. She had that right go go go attitude, if perhaps, a little pushy. After her interview I told her she was hired. She came back with the question, “when do I go on the air?”

I had to explain to her that she must first prove herself to be a good reporter and that she did in record time. She was also one of a handful who took a training program for news anchors I organized with Bong Lapira very seriously. I remember assigning her to cover an overseas trip of FVR to Korea, a big assignment for someone quite junior in the team, but one she did so well. I was not surprised to learn years later that she joined the international team of Bloomberg anchors.

This brings me to the subject of Bloomberg anchors. What a bunch! Don’t let their movie star looks fool you. They ask all the right and tough questions. And you know they aren’t just reading from a teleprompter because of their just as tough follow up questions. Good looks and brains are just the right combinations for a serious all business news channel. Maria Bartiromo of CNBC no longer has the field all to herself.

That’s what’s lacking with our local business newscast now. With Ces and Ricky into general news, ANC must try to get worthy replacements. Ricky still does the morning news but it is the evening business newscast that people turn to at the end of a work day.

They do have a new anchor, Ninfa Bito, who I understand, used to be an equities analyst abroad and more recently was working closely with former Foreign Secretary Bobby Romulo on investment promotions. She shows a lot of promise… at least it is obvious she is comfortable asking the right questions even if she needs to gain more confidence in reading off the teleprompter.

I wonder whatever happened to Cilette Liboro, who used to be an equities trader at the PSE. I thought that when she was hired by ABS-CBN some years ago, she would do on-camera duties in addition to her behind the scenes numbers crunching. Maybe they should recruit from recent graduates with economics and business degrees rather than mass comm. We certainly need Bloomberg-type business anchors who know what they are reporting and look good on television.

With the situation in the world business environment what it is today, I see a need for more business reporting on television delivered with the high production values of entertainment programs by credible anchors that exude confidence because they know what they speak of.

The time has come when business news reporting has become as exciting and riveting as covering a Wimbledon championship or of a Christian Amanpour reporting from the caves of Afghanistan under fire from the Taliban. After all, blood on Wall Street affects us all, whether we understand it or not.

How the media would handle the end of the world

USA Today: WE’RE DEAD.

Wall Street Journal: Dow Jones Plummets as World Ends.

National Enquirer: O.J. and Nicole, Together Again.

Inc. Magazine: 10 Ways You Can Profit From the Apocalypse.

Rolling Stone: The Grateful Dead Reunion Tour.

Sports Illustrated: Game Over.

Playboy: Girls of the Apocalypse.

Lady’s Home Journal: Lose 10 Pounds by Judgment Day with Our New “Armageddon” Diet!

TV Guide: Death and Damnation: Nielson Ratings Soar!

Discover Magazine: How will the extinction of all life as we know it affect the way we view the cosmos?

Microsoft’s Web Site: If you don’t experience the rapture, DOWNLOAD software patch RAPT777.EXE.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]