An inconvenient marriage: Nikkei and the Financial Times

Flickr/Financial Times. Some rights reserved.

“Without fear and without favour” is the banner under which the FT's editorial comments appear. The Nikkei’s editorials appear under nothing, although if pressed they might come up with something like “Without anything so long as stock markets are in favour”. I subscribe to both the FT and the Nikkei. I buy the FT because I enjoy quality journalism combined with sound economic analysis. I buy the Nikkei because I like to know what and how the other half think. To give credit where it is due though, it should also be noted that the Nikkei is good at reporting economic figures. At least they can tell the difference between seasonally adjusted data and not seasonally adjusted ones. Or so they used to. Even that aspect of their output seems a bit shaky these days.

This is an arranged marriage of convenience straight out of the history books of Japan’s equivalent of the Wars of the Roses period. Never mind either personalities or principles. All that matters are survival and power for the two Houses in question.