Resurrecting Business Journalism

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Those who were enjoying a weekend of high sports drama or familial bliss might have missed another media obituary this past Sunday -- David Carr's persuasive au revoir to business journalism in the New York Times.

Carr cites several "technical reasons underlying the collapse -- and that's what it is -- of business journalism." It's hard to argue with him, not to mention dangerous. You don't want a guy like Carr mad at you. Still, you've got to hope he's being a bit pessimistic in order to make his point, and that there's still some life in the game if somebody can figure out a new way to do it.

Carr suggests that the beat itself has lost its mojo, because its subject -- essentially the aggrandizement of Business and its practitioners -- has disappeared. We're not interested in big, glossy spreads of the superpeople who run the economy and its constituent parts. We don't want to see one more big piece on how great this or that financial wizard might be... because we're not in the wizard business anymore.

Yet the need for stories that concern the making and spending of money has never been more important. The collapse of this discipline as a popular art form will spell disaster in the short and long term. Short term -- we won't know what's really going on even more than usual. Long term -- same, only bigger. So what should those who cover Business be writing about, and not? Here are some early suggestions: