Too little, too late: Reporting on the Banco Espírito Santo collapse by the Portuguese press

This article examines the media coverage of the break-up and fall of the Espírito Santo banking group, Portugal’s biggest financial institution. Inspired by Dean Starkman’s analysis of the coverage by the US business press of the 2007–08 mortgage crisis, our study asks whether Portuguese journalism acted like the proverbial watchdog of investigative reporting in the years leading up to the collapse of the Banco Espírito Santo (2012–14). The results of our content analysis reveal the near absence of true investigative journalism during the period and the concentration of reporting in the few months before the collapse of the banking group. This analysis is complemented by an investigative reporting project of two authors of this article. The watchdog barked too little, too late.