Is there any corner of the U.S. society that hasn’t been touched by the so-called “Enron Effect”? Even the nation’s “fourth estate,” daily newspapers, reported that business editors now are taking a new, harder look at the companies they cover to avoid any more surprises among bastions of commerce, according to a report in this week’s (March 11) newspaper industry magazine Editor & Publisher.

Arlington, VA-based AES Corp. is cited in the industry journal’s lead, noting that after last year’s purchase of Indianapolis Power and Light by the international power plant developer/operator, the Indianapolis Star gave the corporate acquisition “routine local business coverage, but that routine is changing,” said the E&P report.

“After the Enron Corp. scandal broke last fall, the Star editors stepped up reporting on AES, with closer scrutiny of the company’s falling stock price, efforts by city officials to intervene in the growing troubles, and tips to readers about avoiding pitfalls of energy company investment.”

E&P‘s article calls the Enron situation a possible “watershed moment for business reporting,” quoting a business editor in Atlanta who thinks it is “a good time to be skeptical” and take a more critical look at companies.

The newspaper industry’s report concluded that business coverage by most major newspapers was found lacking after Enron filed bankruptcy after years of “glowing reports on the company” in every conceivable publication. The editors told E&P that the Enron story has prompted them to improve business coverage and encourage more whistleblowers to speak up.

“It makes you call a lot of things into question, especially the pressures to produce ever-growing stock earnings,” said Jeff Taylor, senior business editor at the Chicago Tribune, which has greatly increased coverage of Chicago-based Arthur Andersen, the auditor entangled in the Enron debacle.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.