1. Press May Own a Share in Financial Mess,
< i>The Washington Post
6 October 2008
p.s. For anyone reading this in London, Tambini is presenting his paper next Monday and will be hosting a conference in February: “Why did nobody see it coming? Reporting the Global Crash of ‘08.”
Back in the mid-90s I toured the Bloomberg operation, with Bloomberg himself as tour guide, as part of an IRE group. Big room, each station had, like, two flat-panel monitors back when nobody had those. There were a hundred reporters in there at least, and Bloomberg told us how they got all the info in real time as a service to subscribers. I looked at all that power and money and talent deployed there and asked, "So, how often do you guys go deep on something, really did under the 10-k and tell what the real deal is?" I knew before I'd finished asking that the question was a tad naive. The response was stunning: about 5, 6 seconds of silence, during which time they looked at me as if I had three heads. Bloomberg's press aid guy (or maybe he was an editor) stammered some boilerplate about "sometimes" doing real j work, but the overall effect was one of impertinence and humiliation--mine--as if I'd asked the King to explain his obesity. This was one of many, many moments in my career in which I felt that way for that reason. I've come to think of that feeling and its manufacture as the chief product of journalism, as recently and presently practiced.
Posted by edward ericson on Tue 13 Jan 2009 at 11:14 PM
This is apropos your good piece, Dean:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/14/nattering_nitwits/index.php
Nattering Nitwits
By Todd Gitlin - January 14, 2009, 10:10AM
Harold Meyerson has a nice column in today's WP underscoring the deeply bizarro nature of an economy that, you've noticed, collapsed under the benign gaze of George "It's your money not the government's money" Bush.
By 2007, when Wall Street's profits amounted to an astonishing 40 percent of all American profits, the business of American finance was no longer American business -- providing loans for domestic production, technological innovation, that sort of thing -- but swapping bets and hedges on bets and hedges, all for hefty commissions.
Save for devising more ways for Americans to go into debt, Wall Street had basically decoupled itself from the economy in which Americans live and work.
And what were America's "financial news" channels doing all that while? I ran into a CNN Money manager at a journalists' do last night, and asked him whether he'd reconsidered any of the networks' reporting, in particular their choice of sources, in the light of recent bubble bursts. The short answer: No. Everything's jus' fine.
Back to Meyerson:
While the nattering nitwits of CNBC hailed the stock market increases of the first seven years of George W. Bush's presidency as evidence that the U.S. economy had never done better, every other economic index made clear that the economy was in dismal shape. As Neil Irwin and Dan Eggen documented in Monday's Post, the rate of job creation and GDP growth during Bush's tenure is the lowest of any president of the post-World War II period. Somehow, our financial geniuses managed to miss this and built a vast financial edifice on the backs of consumers who eventually could consume no more.
I hate to beat up on journalism at such a bleak time in its history, but it's salutary to remember the recent past before rushing out to repeat it.
Posted by Todd Gitlin on Wed 14 Jan 2009 at 10:45 AM
Dean,
Thanks for your help on the report and for this superb analysis/review.
As Director of Polis, responsible for publishing Dr Tambini's report, I am delighted it is getting some US coverage.
I think you are being a bit hard on the quality of US reflection on financial media. In the UK it has also boiled down to people either blaming the BBC's Robert Peston for blogging or claiming that they alone have been warning about the Coming Crisis for years.
We're continuing with this stream of work - Dr Tambini has just returned from Hong Kong and we hope to get support to come to New York.
We will be debating it at a public event at the LSE on February 23rd.
If anyone is interested please have a look at our website at www.polismedia.org - we would welcome input from your side of the Pond!
regards
Charlie Beckett
Director, Polis at LSE
www.charliebeckett.org
Posted by Charlie Beckett on Wed 14 Jan 2009 at 02:31 PM
Here's a snippet of what I, business columnist for OC Register, wrote on this debate recently ...
You know, we're not perfect. Not by a long shot. And I know we could've been bolder. And we could have put coverage of the brewing mess into plainer English, so perhaps you would have better understood the risks that were being taken.
But how can folks – from citizenry to academics to congressional offices – say they were blind-sided by the housing-fed economic disaster when for years various real estate types and their supporters have been complaining about a deep, negative slant to media coverage of the much-debated "housing bubble?"
The rest of my defense of my craft is at http://twurl.nl/hergkv
Posted by Jon Lansner on Wed 14 Jan 2009 at 06:44 PM