Business news is pure Greek

By Oyunga Pala

I watch business fairly regularly but if I was ever subjected to a quick quiz afterwards, I would probably come across as shockingly ignorant.

I barely fathom the analyses pronounced with a finality that makes one feel impoverished and illiterate. Stuff about entities whose abbreviations bombard us daily. If you were never great at figures and dreaded Math in school, business news always sound complex.

Once the newscaster starts to rumble out words like, “And now a look at the Asian markets, the Nikkei index up by 0.41 per cent.” I start to drift, count sheep in my mind and stare into space. One might know the basic financials, but once you walk into money market territory, the details start to get fuzzy, especially when they bring an expert on board prone to saying incomprehensible things as, “The seven day Nibor closed the week at 20.83 per cent, a 416 basis point decrease from the previous week’s 25 per cent, while the 90-day Nibor closed the week at 22.75 per cent, a 495 basis point decrease from the previous week’s figure of 22.71 per cent.” Huh!

Symmetric corridor

Then just as you think it’s done, the pundit beaming live sinks us further into the deep blue sea of financial jargon, “Blah, Blah, retained at 12 per cent while CBN maintained the symmetric corridor of minus 200 basis points.”
I watch the mouth movements, hear the words but it all sounds like Greek to me.I mean, I have really tried to pay attention and on a few occasions, I realise that many business news readers can get away with spewing gibberish. I left with the only thing I can analyse competently, which is the business clips, typical shots of buildings and bored conference participants.
The only balm to this dilemma has been the very distracting female newscaster. While most male newscasters are fairly conservative, opting for the standard grey suit, some female readers can get quite edgy for news reading.

Weather girls

This reminds me of the ‘weather girls’ of old. Most men are guilty of spending too much time staring at the weather girl and hardly any attention to what she says about the state of the sky outside. Weather girls, like business news readers, tend to strut across the screen, greatly increasing viewing options. With fashion rules gone rampant, one is assured of a healthy dosage of viewings as cleavages pop everywhere with hips tightly trussed on our screens. On many occasions, the only question in my mind has been “Aren’t those trousers a little too tight?”

Luckily ‘sports’ cuts in and plunks us out of a possible fixation. No wonder we never remember what the business news was about. Yet we remember what the newscaster was wearing.
Putting sensuality on a pedestal I suppose is the only way to get the rest of us outside the financial industry to watch business news. We sit through the rambling like obedient students taking a compulsory civic education class.
To the outsider, we may appear to be listening keenly but most of the time; it is the newscaster dress sense that is under scrutiny!