SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro told attendees of the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit yesterday that the current mass layoffs of financial journalists is an “absolute worry” for her because she believes “financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about.”
Reuters reports that Schapiro added that “[b]ut for journalists having been dogged and determined and really pursuing some of these things, they might not be known to the regulators or they might not be known for a long time.” She also suggested that journalists should consider applying for jobs at the SEC:
Investigative journalism actually would be a pretty interesting skill set for us to have. We’ve talked about financial analysis, we’ve talked about forensic accounting being skill sets that we really need — understanding of complex trading, strategies and systems, but it’s one of the things the SEC has to do. It has to really broaden its horizons and bring in people who think about things a little differently than it has historically.
[…] (via Securities Docket) […]