When host Lou Dobbs left "Moneyline" in spring 1999 at the start of his two-year absence from CNN, it was the cable network's most profitable show. By then, broadcast networks were fervently targeting the same demographics, and not only with explicitly financial offerings like "CBS Marketwatch." Regular news programs got accustomed to lavishing attention on minor business developments -- not because of significant economic implications for the general public, but because of executive decisions in news departments.

When CNN revamped its daytime schedule in mid-1999 to make room for three and a half hours of programs about commerce and investment, the cable giant's president Richard Kaplan explained: "We look at business and finance as something we have to cover on a general interest news network. It's like the Cold War in the '50s. You just have to do it."

Some viewers became far more equal than others. For broadcast and cable television, the goal has not simply been to attract a high number of eyeballs. As the Associated Press reported this year in an article about the intense competition between "Moneyline" and CNBC's "Business Center" program: "The audiences are small, but affluent, so advertisers pay a premium to run commercials."

Countless news stories now amount to little more than human interest narratives about the glories and tribulations of entrepreneurs, financiers and CEOs. At networks owned by conglomerates like GE, Viacom and Disney, the news divisions solemnly report every uptick or downturn of the stock market. Between 1988 and 1999, the TV networks doubled the amount of air time they devoted to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Viewers may assume that coverage reflects the considered judgment of journalistic pros. But those journalists are in a media industry dominated by corporate institutions with enough financial sway to redefine the functional meaning of professionalism.

National Public Radio airs the "NPR business update" as part of its regular newscast, heard many times each day on stations nationwide. There's no "NPR labor update." Public radio listeners have easy access to the national daily "Marketplace" program and the weekly "Sound Money" show, but there's no "Workplace" or "Sound Labor" broadcast.

In the quarter century since The New York Times founded its "Business Day" section, daily papers have turned more and more newsprint over to targeting the affluent readers most coveted by business advertisers. The Washington Post expanded its everyday business section from two to 12 pages. Around the country, the pattern has been similar, with a range of media outlets boosting their financial coverage -- at the expense of other news.

Along the way, these trends have transformed basic concepts of what it really means to be a journalist. "As the 1980s rocketed along, our 'readers' became 'consumers,'" recalls New York Times reporter Diana B. Henriques. "As the 1990s unfolded, those 'consumers' morphed into 'investors.' And today, some of us are speaking only to investors who also own computer modems."

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