On Twitter, auditor Truenfairview gets cross with the BBC's reporting of the recent shooting in County Durham on this morning's Today programme (For seven days from the date of this post, you can listen to the reporting here).
Watching an auditor criticising journalism set me thinking about how journalists criticise auditing. Take, for example, our old friend Ian Fraser, proof positive that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing:
Why does this matter? Because if audit firms are as cozy with their clients as they have been over the past 15 to 20 years, they are a waste of space. As I said in the opener, they may also have become a danger to capitalism itself.
Most of his work consists of diatribes like this, 'supported' by a list of the engagements where audit firms failed to meet all the requirements of ethical or auditing standards. Despite never having been on an audit or worked for an accountancy firm, he argues that he is entitled to criticise the audit profession in this way, even though he does so in a biased and imbalanced fashion that fails to take account of the tens of thousands of audit engagements that meet the exacting standards in full.
Of course, journalists aren't immune from public criticism; the Leveson enquiry has been probing certain improper practices that were apparently rife in some tabloid newspapers. But Leveson has been focusing on activities that are already largely illegal rather than merely in breach of professional standards. Indeed, journalists have no professional standards because, despite their protestations, they're not a profession. That doesn't mean that some journalists aren't professional. But it does mean that journalists are held to a much lower standard of conduct than professional auditors.
Fraser, in criticising the Big 4, fails to demonstrate any causal link between the actions of auditors and any ultimate harm caused to third parties. In fact, in some cases - such as in the recent case over pwc and client money regulations at JP Morgan - he doesn't even show that any harm was caused. It's the mere breach of regulations that they were required to follow that matters. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that auditors shouldn't be required to follow the standards expected of them. But I do believe that any criticism of the profession should consider the work done by auditors in the round, rather than selecting the worst examples of their performance and pretending that they are representative of the rest of their work.
Similarly, nothing will come of the BBC's sloppy reporting this morning. It's virtually impossible to link a particular report to any harm caused. Even without this, there are no external standards that they can be held to. Of course, the BBC ought to hold itself to a much higher standard because, unlike commercial news organisations, the ultimate sanction - withdrawing your patronage - doesn't apply to them, thanks to the licence fee.
However, I wouldn't support a wholesale professionalisation of journalism, because it could be used to exclude amateur writers, such as this blogger, from writing and reporting. But I do think it appropriate for journalists who work for major newspapers or who want to be taken seriously to hold themselves to the same high standards some of their number seem to think appropriate for the Big 4.
So which journalist(s) will be the first to take the lead?
Filed under: Auditing, Ethics with tags audit quality, bbc, big 4, ian fraser, journalists, jp morgan, leveson, pricewaterhousecoopers, twitter
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