You could, in regard to business journalism, start from the assumption that talking to CEOs and other insiders has zero, or possibly even negative value. (I think it probably is true that much of what passes for business journalism — basically everything on CNBC, and any article in Barron’s or Forbes that purports to rate a tradable security — actively makes viewers / readers stupider.)

But that is, it seems to me, probably not true for ALL cases. Unlike the macroeconomy “beat” (to the extent there even is something like that), on the business beat, the access journalists produce interesting stories fairly often. You need to filter them, and try to query the motives of their named sources and anonymice. But the business reporters tend to be less gullible than the DC reporters. They’re much less likely to perpetrate this kind of stupidity, in which they get the basic facts of the situation they’re supposed to be reporting on precisely backwards.