I don’t have any journalistic heroes, but if I had to pick one, Gillian Tett would probably be it. Trained as an anthropologist, she came to journalism almost by accident. During her work experience at the Financial Times, revolution broke out in Lithuania and the paper needed a Russian-speaker to cover it. She then joined the FT’s graduate scheme and has remained with the paper ever since. With no training in finance or economics, she has managed to forge a career articulating complex financial issues. In 2005, she began covering credit derivatives when these were still deemed largely boring and unfashionable. Now that these have blown up our financial system, Tett has emerged as one of the most recognizable faces of the crisis. Popular opinion hails her as the woman who made the accurate predictions. ‘Complete bollocks,’ she commented in response to these acclaims at an LSE talk last April.
I had arranged to meet her just before her appearance at the LSE Economics Convention. Waiting at the Old Building reception, I spot a blonde woman in a long overcoat and boots speaking on a mobile phone. Some minutes elapse before I approach her – at one point she wanders down Houghton Street and is lost to sight. She soon returns, however, and a suited first year Economics Society representative leads us to one of the classrooms behind the Hong Kong Theatre. Tett speaks briskly and keeps to the point, with the confidence of someone used to articulating intricate concepts quickly.
She is passionate about anthropology, and says journalism “has always been an obsession and vocation”. When her first story was published, she “was so excited [she] could hardly sleep”. Highlights of her career include coverage of the USSR’s collapse in 1991, the Japanese financial crisis and, of course, the current global downturn.
She feels “profoundly uncomfortable” about her mini-celebrity status, but understands that people are searching for recognizable faces.
“Banking is very abstract and scary, and people no longer trust bankers.” Still, the attention does affect her work. She has to be more careful about what she writes and it is harder to do “be invisible” when researching.
“It’s different from the way I used to work as an anthropologist,” she grins, “when I would go to people’s houses and pretend to be a piece of furniture.”
Still, the biggest difficulty of being a financial journalist is dealing with an industry that does not appreciate criticism. Banks have many ways of making life difficult, from making complaints about articles to forbidding employees from talking to the press, hence forcing journalists to solely deal with PR teams.
“You’re writing about people more powerful than you are,” Tett explains. “Financial institutions don’t want you to write things that reflect badly on them, and they have a thousand subtle ways to make sure you only write what they want you to write.”
Even without these outside pressures, reporting on complex financial products is not easy. This difficulty, however, is just something that has to be taken in stride. Helping the public understand how money revolves in the financial industry, Tett insists, is a “very important social mission.”
It’s a social mission that doesn’t just rely on a robust financial press, she tells me the next day on a phone interview. Financial literacy should be in school curriculums, vital in the same way as healthy eating should be. Schools are not equipped to do this, but she praises the financial literacy scheme run by professional bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
I ask how she fares as a female financial journalist in a predominantly male industry.
“You definitely stand out,” she laughs. At the same time, she mentions working in countries where sexism is more pronounced. Everyone does the best they can.
She does think that women in particular need to understand money and know how to manage finances. The financial services need more female voices to give a greater plurality to the industry. Being a mother also gives you a better awareness of social issues, especially when you need to balance between childcare and work.
Speaking to Tett, it is clear that she is someone who is passionate about showing in her words “how money goes around the world,” a passion which is driven by a deep seated social conscience. In a world where people still labour under the idea that finance is not necessary or is too complex for anyone without a mathematical background to understand, she stands out as an example.
So, what advice does she have for people without the mathematical background on how to approach learning about finance?
“Reading the FT is a good start,” she grins. “But the key thing is to be curious about how money goes around the world. And don’t be intimidated by the fancy language. You have to remember that it’s just jargon, which makes [finance] more mysterious than it actually is.”
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