Beware forces that incentivize pessimism.

BY PHIL ROSEN, CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR, OPENING BELL DAILY @PHILROSENN

Photos: Getty Images

A version of this column first appeared on Phil Rosen’s Substack.

I meet an astounding number of pessimists as a financial journalist.

Despite covering the world’s progress in real time, people in media and finance can’t seem to shake their perennial bearishness. Spend a day in a newsroom or hedge fund, and the mood centers on what’s about to break.

It’s a strange paradox. The professions best equipped to assess the future are the least hopeful about it.

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I’ve come to see that disconnect as one of the great blind spots of legacy institutions.

My own optimism felt out of place when I worked at Business Insider. There, like elsewhere across mainstream media, you find an improbable number of business reporters who detest business and tech reporters who can’t stand new technology.

Just the same, I speak daily with Wall Street professionals who are more eager to share what they’re betting against than investments they think will appreciate over time.

Much of this is a problem of incentives. In both media and markets, pessimism sounds intelligent. It signals status and conveys a sense of being........

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