1. Code of Practice, Press Complaints Commission (pcc) 85

2. The Financial Times Department: Code of Practice 86

3. The Interview with William Dawkins 88 acknowledgements

This dissertation is a compilation of my life as a journalist in Japan and a postgraduate student in the United Kingdom. From building the structure of this paper to interviews and research, the whole process was very stimulating experience. Now I finally reached to finish this research, and I would like to express my gratitude to this opportunity to study and research in the United Kingdom.

I would like to express my thanks to the journalists who accepted my offer even though they are extremely busy. I am grateful to William Dawkins, Dan Bogler, Nigel Scott, Joanna Blythman, Mitsutoshi Kouta, Naoko Miyashita, Masahide Inatome, and Kazuyuki Sasaki for providing the stories of their precious experiences in business/financial journalism. I really need to thank Michael Rowles at the University of Leeds, the supervisor of this research, who introduced me many informative websites, books, and people to whom I should contact, and always kept encouraging me at the very last moment. I really appreciate the support. In addition, I would like to thank Katrin Voltmer and Robin Brown who were my module leaders at the University of Leeds, and inspired me very much in the areas of communication and journalism studies. The discussion became the basis of this research.

In addition, I would like to thank to the British Council for the support my life in the United Kingdom. Because of its support, I could concentrate on my study and obtain the opportunities to meet many interesting people.

I would like to show my biggest gratitude to my friends who I met at University of Leeds all over the world. Through the discussion, I changed many points of views. Finally, I am really grateful to my parents and my brother for their support and trust.

Abstract

In recent years, the activity of corporations spreads globally and their influential power increase very much. The powerful in politics is generally examined by election in democracy, but what about corporations? In this context, the role of journalism is significant to detect their wrong doings for the public. However, to what extent, is journalism successful to detect them and warn people in reality? If it is difficult, what are the reasons? How do the actual journalists tackle to pursue their role? This paper focuses on “business/financial journalism” which is considered to specialise in economic matters, and examines its role, problems and the way for journalists to tackle them. This dissertation tries to answer these questions by using the Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, as well as through interviews with actual journalists working for business/financial news organisations in London, Leeds and Tokyo. It concludes that it is actually hard for journalists to detect frauds, but they pursue their role through education, self-regulation, and being transparent in the articles.