London Briefing: The London Stock Exchange (LSE) will be moving premises next year, just down the road to the newly redeveloped Paternoster Square. The exchange ceased to be a centralised area for the physical trading of stocks and shares way back at the end of the 1980s, following the deregulation of the London markets.

With the notable exception of the New York Stock Exchange, most exchanges around the world long ago abandoned their trading floors to technology. Screen-based trading is now the norm. Indeed, some people argue that technology will ultimately lead to the total decentralisation of trading and that formal exchanges, even virtual ones, will no longer be needed.

For now, the need for a set of rules and regulations governing the trading of stocks and shares means that bodies like the LSE need to exist. The technology platforms that electronic exchanges provide also help to facilitate trading, reducing the demands and costs imposed on individual investors. Indeed, size and technological prowess are everything, which is why the LSE has been looking for a European merger to ensure its survival.

Given that the LSE has not had a physical trading floor for around a decade and a half, it is curious that news media such as the BBC and Sky News persist in providing a lot of their financial reporting "from the floor of the London Stock Exchange".

We often see news reports about this or that market development with the correspondent or guest analyst speaking in front of a backdrop that includes the logo of the exchange. The intention appears to be to give the viewers the impression that the commentary is coming from the centre of the action; insight is to be gained, apparently, from being where it all happens.

Except, of course, that it doesn't. Just why the producers and directors of these various news programmes persist with the myth of a centralised exchange is uncertain.

My guess is that they know the basic raw material they have to work with doesn't lend itself to the era of reality TV. News about company profits being up a couple of per cent, the decisions of central bankers not to do anything to interest rates, the opinions of inarticulate analysts: it is quite tough to make any of this sexy.

The Americans, of course, do it much better. Somehow they manage to inject their financial programming with glamour and in a way that, even when we attempt to replicate the format, we simply do not know how to do.

The downside is that the US media, with its tendency towards hype, is sometimes accused of having helped to inflate the stockmarket bubble of the late 1990s. While I think there is some truth to this, I think the label "Tout TV", given to parts of the US financial media, is a little harsh.

I gained a lot of respect for CNBC when, for a while, it carried the commentary of stock market analysts with the theme from Star Trek playing in the background. No amount of harsh questioning could have conveyed that amount of scepticism about forecasts so quickly and so effectively.

The contrast between UK and US print media is, if anything, greater. The battle between the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal is an unequal one. In attempting to win market share in the US and Europe the FT can't shake off its UK bias.

The Journal is always an entertaining right-wing rant and has, I suspect, far greater analytical resources at its disposal. Business Week is always fun to read while the Economist, although analytically very strong, can be much tougher going. Perhaps the key difference is that the Journal and Business Week are always optimistic whereas the FT and the Economist are always doubtful about economic recovery and fearful of a stock market crash. Pessimism is dull.

The LSE's new home is in the brand new building that has replaced the "carbuncles", in Prince Charles's famous phrase. I'm not sure it was worth the effort. I don't think any architect has put much design effort into the process. So when you see those BBC and Sky News programmes coming from the "new headquarters of the London Stock Exchange" don't be fooled. Nothing much is happening in Paternoster Square. All of the relevant action is taking place elsewhere.