The housing crisis, Lehman's collapse, the abject failure of American car companies—over and over, pundits, politicians, and taxpayers have asked: Isn't there any way we could have predicted this? Of course, business journalists have made mighty fine punching bags throughout this crisis—and perhaps rightly so. Who could forget Jon Stewart's epic takedown of Rick Santelli and the CNBC-ers, who had assured us all was fine and well?

The industry has answered its critics a handful of ways. Some say we could never have seen this crisis coming; others claim that the incisive journalism needed to expose corruption just doesn't sell. But at Tuesday night's Columbia Journalism Review panel on "post-meltdown" business journalism, the gathered journalists agreed on one key factor that contributes to poor reporting: access.

CEOs can be as closed or as open as they want to be—if they don't like a certain journalist, they're under no obligation to play. And if you want the splashy interview with the big-shot CEO, you have to be nice to get access and stay friends with the company, said Gretchen Morgenson, a panelist at CJR's conference and a Times reporter covering Wall Street.

"These are extremely powerful people who are not used to being questioned," said Morgenson. Even worse, this sealed-off access extends from the private financial sector to the public. "The Treasury will barely return our phone calls. ... [Y]ou get radio silence. FOIA is not the answer because you just get long and shaggy dog answers."

So what about business journalism that doesn't depend on CEO access? The pieces based on data and documents?

"The frames got narrower and narrower, and the room to do stories that don't rely on access ... got narrower and narrower," said Dean Starkman, whose criticism of crisis-era coverage graces this month's cover of CJR. "You had to be a powerful reporter to get away with it."