The New York Observer’s Max Abelson takes a look at the Wall Street people who nearly crashed the world. Where are they now? Mostly still on Wall Street; many in the same jobs.
Howzat? Abelson ledes with this eye-raising quote from Dick Parsons of Citigroup:
“Have you ever noticed,” the chairman of Citigroup, Richard D. Parsons, asked The Observer this Monday evening, “that in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in Major League Baseball, this guy was a failure at Cleveland, and then he becomes the coach in Houston? These guys just move around from one team to another. Why is that? Because there isn’t a very deep pool of skilled talent that exists.
“And so, too, for a lot of financial stuff: Not everybody who’s walking up and down Fifth Avenue at noon is capable of running a derivatives book,” he went on, voice low, sitting in the 57th Street offices of the firm Providence Equity, where he’s a senior adviser. “It takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge to be in that business.”
And so, naturally, this priesthood will remain richly remunerated:
“Are people who once earned staggering sums going to earn non-staggering sums going forward? No,” Mr. Parsons explained Monday.
But the most fun parts of this piece are the huge graphics showing where major characters are now, where they were, and a snippet to sum them up.
See for instance, John Winkelried, former COO Goldman Sachs, now ranching in Colorado: “Paid $460,000 for a horse in 2005 named I Sho Spensive.”
Print them out, or better yet, buy a print copy of the Observer. It’ll make a handy reference.
— I criticized The Wall Street Journal for slapping a generic news story on Prince William’s engagment in the ahed spot this morning (among other things).
Meanwhile, the paper is plumping this NewsHub video on Twitter:
Who will design Kate Middleton’s dress for her royal wedding?
If this were an American princess, Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta would be at the top of Kate Middleton’s wedding dress list. But the question is: how traditional will she go? Will she opt for a well-known designer like Marchesa or surprise the world with an unknown emerging designer?
Now, there’s no reporting involved here as far as I can tell. It’s pure speculation about what kind of dress Kate Middleton will wear in her wedding and who will design it.
Oy.
— Keith Olbermann raises some good points in his “special comment” on Ted Koppel’s Washington Post op-ed. But it’s a bit rich, to put it nicely, to see Keith Olbermann huff and puff and compare himself to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, who took stands on important issues of their day.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The thing is, very few people take Olbermann’s fulminations seriously because, unlike Cronkite et al, he’s an advocate, not an arbiter—not to mention a rage-filled blowhard. In other words, Cronkite wouldn’t have had the credibility to be listened to had he done what Olbermann does night in and night out. Cronkite may have been a liberal like a good portion of the country at that time, but viewers trusted him to find the truth. He earned that trust because he was fair. If he’d behaved like Olbermann did on MSNBC on the most-recent election night, he wouldn’t have been one of the most trusted man in America.
Real objectivity isn’t about doing down-the-line he said/she said reporting and leaving the reader to figure it out. It’s not about creating false equivalence. It’s about being fair to all sides and trying to determine the truth, wherever it lies. The press hasn’t always done a good job of this, of course, particularly most recently in the runup to the Iraq War (when it was cowed by a post 9/11 nationalism and misled and manipulated by a savvy and cynical Bush administration) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an ideal that’s still worth pursuing.
On the first item, I disagree that not everyone "is capable of running a derivatives book." I'd venture to say that a majority of working Americans, with a little training and experience, are capable of doing exactly that. It doesn't take extraordinary brains or some special talent. In fact, I'm pretty sure the fabulous, hardworking Administrative Assistants in my office could take on a derivatives book, several of them, in addition to their other duties, and run circles around these bastards. What it appears to take, from where I sit, is a lack of integrity, and extraordinary amount of greed, and the correct racial/ethnic background to get the job.
On the third item, I don't think Olbermann is another Murrow or Cronkite either, but I take exception to your description of "rage-filled." That's unfair and over the top, and I doubt you can back it up. I've noticed that "rage-filled" description is only used on liberals, and is employed to dismiss what they have to say out of hand. I call foul, @Ryan. Give us the evidence of "rage-filled."
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Wed 17 Nov 2010 at 07:57 PM
I'm more of Taibbi's mind on this than you.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/30/on-giving-goldman-a-chance/
"I’m aware that some people feel that it’s a journalist’s responsibility to “give both sides of the story” and be “even-handed” and “objective.” A person who believes that will naturally find serious flaws with any article like the one I wrote about Goldman. I personally don’t subscribe to that point of view. My feeling is that companies like Goldman Sachs have a virtual monopoly on mainstream-news public relations; for every one reporter like me, or like far more knowledgeable critics like Tyler Durden, there are a thousand hacks out there willing to pimp Goldman’s viewpoint on things in the front pages and ledes of the major news organizations. And there are probably another thousand poor working stiffs who are nudged into pushing the Goldman party line by their editors and superiors (how many political reporters with no experience reporting on financial issues have swallowed whole the news cliche about Goldman being the “smart guys” on Wall Street? A lot, for sure).
Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it. Given all of this, I personally think it’s absurd to talk about the need for “balance” in every single magazine and news article. I understand that some people feel differently, but that’s my take on things."
People you tell the truth aren't emotionless, aren't "objective" in the sense that it's used today (objective is another word for balance. When you split 50/50 between truth and lie, that's not educational. That's watering down the truth.)
They care about the truth and they rage against the lie, maybe in an over the top way occasionally, but better that than playing the soulless arbiter between falsehood and reality, luke warm news within which no information really matters. Neutral information is forgotten because it has no meaning. Good journalists, good truth tellers draw upon personal emotion to communicate meaning, to communicate meaningful information.
This is why the work of people like Bill Moyers and Paul Krugman are so valuable, they tell the truth as they see it and as feel it. The neutral media labels that shrill and unbalanced.
We have not been served well by neutrality and the opposition has turned lie telling into both an emotional art and a successful business model. There is a time for rage. If the descent of a once great democracy into the gutters of torturous, societal looting, police state isn't it, when is?
Rick Perlstein said something a while back:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495_pf.html
"Liberals are right to be vigilant about manufactured outrage, and particularly about how the mainstream media can too easily become that outrage's entry into the political debate. For the tactic represented by those fake Nixon letters was a long-term success. Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans and that their duty as tribunes of the people's voices means they should treat Obama's creation of "death panels" as just another justiciable political claim. If 1963 were 2009, the woman who assaulted Adlai Stevenson would be getting time on cable news to explain herself. That, not the paranoia itself, makes our present moment uniquely disturbing.
It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 17 Nov 2010 at 09:11 PM
I do no believe that Olbermann compared himself to either Cronkite or Murrow. He simply shot down the op-ed by Koppel by pointing out how the old Koppel had some gumption and would have called out BS for what it is, rather than the current Koppel who seems obsessed with idea that there are two equivalent sides to every statement, no matter how objectively insane.
The modern media would have had a show which allowed Hitler to be on one side, and a rational person on the other explaining that no, the Jews aren't responsible for everything, and that the facts are completely lacking to support a single element of Hitler's position. Making sure that you give each of them 5 minutes or less.
A real example of the ridiculousness of this is yesterday's Politico article quoting unnamed GOP staffers complaining how Obama ambushed them last January, when in fact he had been invited to speak, and the GOP itself advertised his attendance and speech weeks in advance. Did Politico call them on this? No. Simply reported what they said with all the implication of validity it involves.
Journalism is nearly dead.
#3 Posted by gudin, CJR on Thu 18 Nov 2010 at 12:06 PM
The WSJ is trying to shift down market and if it sells, who can blame them? You can always ignore the tabloid stuff, I'm more worried about all the typos cropping up in their online articles these days, never used to see those before. No print media company will survive the transition online, so the WSJ will be rubbished like the rest eventually, but at least they're profitable now, which is more than you can say for most everybody else.
#4 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Thu 18 Nov 2010 at 11:34 PM
Okay @Ryan,
Your colleague Dean Starkman took Clay Shirkey to task for characterizing Lauren Kirchner's Zagat piece as a "disservice" trying to dial down the rhetoric. I'm asking the same from you -- calling Keith Olbermann a "rage-filled blowhard" is uncalled for and over the top.
I'm not trying to be the civility police, but c'mon. How about "impassioned polemicist"? Gotta start somewhere. How about now?
#5 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 19 Nov 2010 at 07:41 AM
@Ryan,
I expect some equivalent treatment, here. Joe Scarborough suspended from MSNBC for campaign donations - Kenneth P. Vogel - POLITICO.com
I'm expecting the same kind of treatment -- a screed with you calling Scarborough a "rage-filled blowhard" and questioning his ethics and objectivity. In fact, I'm waiting for three or four CJR posts on this subject, all taking an anti-Scarborough slant. C'mon, fair's fair.
Or is it OK if Scarborough does it? After all, he's a Republican.
#6 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 19 Nov 2010 at 02:25 PM
Those last two paragraphs were very well put.
Personally, I find it offensive that Keith Olbermann would compare himself to any respected journalist, let alone Murrow or Cronkite. But it's a free country. If Lindsay Lohan wants to cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to defend her parole violations, she can do that. If Olbermann wants to pretend he has anything to do with journalism, well, the First Amendment applies to delusional carnival barkers, too.
On the Taibbi quote: the "neutral media" labels that editorial/opinion content. That's what it is. We've had opinionated reporters in this country for a long time. They're called columnists. They - along with 'news analysis' and muckraking and publications like MotherJones - have been around for awhile.
The technological and business-model issues are not license for a handful of melodramatic, hyperventilating advocates to redefine "reporting" as "argument." If that wasn't repulsive to so many of us, they wouldn't have to spend this much energy trying to convince people.
#7 Posted by Taking fulminations on 'mute', CJR on Fri 19 Nov 2010 at 08:10 PM
James,
Keith Olbermann is a blowhard. About that, I'm confident, most folks agree. "Rage-filled" is my impression, one I'd bet a lot of other people perceive, too. I don't get that so much with Scarborough.
And I didn't say word one about Olbermann's ethics, and I think I'm in safe territory on his objectivity.
#8 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Mon 22 Nov 2010 at 08:26 PM
@Ryan,
The charge of "rage-filled" to me connotes something very different to me than it does to you, obviously. Maybe it is a clique-ish thing that you journos have - - calling liberals "rage-filled blowhards" must give you some kind of cozy membership and camaraderie with the WaPo and Politico after-hours crowd. But it doesn't reflect well on your judgment as a journalist, is all I'm saying. Surely a man with your truly awesome writing talent can come up with a less offensive characterization.
I understand that you, as a featured writer on a media criticism site, aren't writing for someone like me, but I really value your knowledge and your ability to explain the nuances of big business, and especially, especially the Wall Street milieu. That's why it's disappointing when you defend an indefensible characterization like this. It's uncalled for.
I don't expect an apology or anything like that -- you've dug in and the thing is over. My hope is that you might, next time, give second thought to using a common, vulgar characterization like that, in the spirit of lifting the rhetoric a bit out of the mud. You are a better journo than that.
With all due respect.
James
#9 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 22 Nov 2010 at 09:41 PM
You don't get that from Joe Scarborough very often because Joe Scarborough is a petulant little jerk who has a format designed in a way to protect his precious feelings.
He's had vicious little tantrums at Rachel Maddow, David Shuster, Zbigniew Brzezinski for god's sake, and he abuses people verbally constantly, though not as an angry guy I'll admit. Overconfident bully is his shtick. Not to mention often inaccurate blowhard.
I mean who enjoys this high school crap?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdHHUWAHNVA
#10 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 24 Nov 2010 at 01:02 AM
Yes @Ryan,
How about doing a couple of Scarborough rants as a "petulant little jerk"? That's an equivalent shot to your "rage-filled blowhard." Fair's fair. There is ample evidence of Scarborough's petulance. He is a jerk, and I'm confident most people agree. And petulant is an impression I get from seeing a lot of clips of his show, one I'd bet a lot of other people perceive, too.
#11 Posted by James, CJR on Wed 24 Nov 2010 at 12:22 PM
You know what’s really funny? I love how rank and file liberals juts freaking love Olberman and liberal elites (as evident from Journolist conversations) can’t stand the guy. Whats even better is although they think he’s a misogynist prick, they wont publicly chastise him because he’s good for the cause. So much for those principles.
CJR’s got some J-lister, I wonder if they too share the contempt for Olberman seen by their fellow J-listers?
#12 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 24 Nov 2010 at 06:46 PM