Stanley Pignal, FT Brussels correspondent

This is a précis of a research interview conducted at the Brussels newsdesk of the Financial Times (8 Feb. 2010).

“It would be easiest if you could come to my office”. And so I travel to Brussels to meet the Financial Times’ Brussels bureau chief. “Oh, he’s out I’m afraid, but Stanley is in” says the secretary. “He’s our Brussels correspondent. Perhaps you can interview him?” Ah, serendipity my friend, how have you been?

Stanley Pignal is a business reporter who made international headlines (and landed himself a FT contract) by unmasking Jérôme Kerviel as the rogue trader who cost French investment bank Société Générale a pretty penny. I introduce myself and tell him I have a research interest in the media representation of Flanders. He responds by outlining how the FT covers Belgium.

In addition to covering the major political and financial stories, the FT occasionally publishes a survey of Belgium.

When asked how the FT covers Flanders, Stanley says:

Commenting on his own coverage of Belgium as the paper’s Brussels correspondent, Stanley notes that he’s “written maybe three of four stories about Belgium”

Interestingly, one of the longer stories was on the (ongoing) Belgian-Dutch dredging dispute (“how complicated is it to actually take care of this river?”):

Conversely, notoriously complex news stories like BHV are simply “not of interest”:

Other stories that make the cut have to do with employment in Flanders:

Despite a stated concern about media coverage by the Flemish government, I was surprised to learn that the Flemish government do not view foreign media as a high priority, as opposed to the federal government: