Posted on 04/27/2009 7:43:06 PM PDT by Lorianne
In a windowless room at the Westin Hotel in downtown Denver, leading business journalists and editors explained how the media “blew it” in covering the economic meltdown. They admitted, on one hand, to falling under the sway of free-market ideology and celebrating risk-taking financial leaders and, on the other, to missing the complex story of the rupturing system by only reporting it in parts and to almost no effect for the past decade.
Although not planned as confession, the discussion, which kicked off the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW), quickly descended into an unburdening, with the panelists taking turns voicing their own explanations and excuses for the failure. Former Wall Street Journal managing editor and current ProPublica.org chief Paul Steiger moderated the impromptu journalistic penitence.
“We drank the Kool-Aid,” said Jane Bryant Quinn, personal finance columnist for Bloomberg and Newsweek. “We believed that free markets were the best kind [of markets].” She said it had become “unfashionable” over the last three decades to write about regulation, so they didn’t.
“We could say things were risky … but we never said ‘Where’s the Fed?’”
University of Michigan business professor Greg Miller said that the finance beat had simply grown too complex and compartmentalized for journalists to cover well in the traditional way.
“No one banker could walk me through securitization in 2006,” he said. “They’re all specialists.” He said bankers rely on other specialists to take up the slack. “They don’t know even know each other’s names,” he said.
Miller suggested journalists should specialize and then work together to create more comprehensive coverage.
But veteran TV journalist Allan Dodds Frank, who now writes for the DailyBeast.com after a career with CNN, Bloomberg and ABC News covering white collar crime, said that complex economic stories were virtually impossible to sell to his editors.
“Fannie and Freddie were not covered on TV because there’s no visual,” he said, referring to the country’s major lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which made billions in the run up to the collapse by doling out increasingly high-risk loans.
He said journalists couldn’t figure out what “Wall Street was doing” and that high-rolling CEOs and fund managers were never compelled to answer tough questions.
“We soft-balled them because we wanted them to come on [our shows] … we let them hide the ball on us.”
Frank pointed out that there were no representatives at the conference from CNBC — the business channel ridiculed recently for its celebratory coverage of Wall Street — and said it was no secret that “in broadcast financial journalism, corporations are sexy.” Coveted interviews with CEO celebrities had moved investigative pieces off of edit calendars.
“The glamorization of business news [led us] to adopt a posture of reverence [toward our subjects] … We knew it was nonsense,” he said.
Of the journalists on the panel, New York Times Business Editor Larry Ingrassia was the least bowed. He read out a list of stories The Times had run over the last decade that treated the escalating loan crisis and executive compensation, for example.
“The regulators were asleep but we reporters were not,” he said.
He later explained that the stories were there even if readers didn’t heed them. He explained that his writers are looking to explain problems and maintained it was unfair to judge coverage based on whether people act on the information reported.
In the end he seemed to undermine his argument, though, agreeing that they missed an important story that would have targeted a group that could have made a difference. The laxity of federal finance regulators went unreported in The New York Times and in other publications, he admitted.
“The [finance industry] lobbyists had more impact on the regulators than we did,” he said, pointing indirectly to the expanded influence the financial sector came to wield in Washington over the past three decades — the story many now argue is at the heart of the collapse.
SABEW conference organizers said that, even though other journalism organizations canceled events this year, they decided to go forward despite the ongoing crisis in the newspaper industry.
“There is a huge need for business journalists to become more knowledgeable and versatile — for the sake of readers and viewers and for their [own] personal livelihoods,” SABEW President Bernie Kohn wrote in the conference program.
This holds true in almost every topic area - it is why news organizations are dying. All they do now is read (Democratic) press releases, rather than uncovering scandles and waste.
They still do not get it. It was not the free market but politicians distorting the free market to help their corrupt freinds like hedge funds. It was pols with community organizers, CRA lawsuits, bank shakedowns by community organizers/lib lawyers, Fannie & Freddie & Cong Black Caucus and Barney Frank block ANY regulation.
The deregulation of Wall Street had major problems and Glass Stegall should never have been dismantled - with 1920s investment pools outlawed (now today’s hedge funds), no uptick rule today, naked shorting, excessive leverage, govt moral hazard in bailing out companies.
These business writers are clueless. It was corrupt politicians with corrupt business people.
Two words “Media Malpractice”
We believed that free markets were the best kind [of markets].”
Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, HUD, CRA, Government accusations of redlining and racism, yup, that’s a free market (sarcasm).
Peter Schiff's Analogies (Economic wisdom you won't hear anyplace else)
My question to the conference attendees would have been, "Is the great majority of the financial press wilfully blind, or just plain stupid?!?"
This article is hilariously flawed.
Who are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
Oh yes, government entities.
No one wants to admit that it is the unregulated GOVERNMENT that is at the root of these and so many other evils.
The Left is so desperate to incite obedience to tyranny that now that want to tap into public frustration over the Media as some sort of irrational whiplash into socialism.
I wonder if the authors of the article think we need a critical press covering Obama?
Probably not.
He is righteous and pure.
We need to be more obedient to him.
Free Republic wins again.
Let me explain it to you. PRESIDENT GWB was the massive government leader/promoter but represented capitalism and free markets with a few words to keep followers in line. Everytime the media called on Bush to do something it was billions and stimulus and bailouts. So the results of his policies get blamed on capitalism. Something to think about next time the R party nominates another McCain, or Romney and we are told “Worst of two evils” That is the price. So is Obama/Pelosi.
Yep, it’s communism they are really rooting for.
Let me explain it to you.
Bush was not the massive government promoter.
He did promote free markets and capitalism— providing the longest and largest Global economic expansion in human history.
Even his Tarp 1 had a payback for taxpayers and stopped short of half expenditure [350 billion].
The refusal to acknowledge Bush’s conservative credentials are part of an irrational pathology that feeds the radical Left’s control of public policy.
Tax cuts were the cornerstone of Bush’s success in overcoming the Clinton recession and the massive financial hit of 911. That is basic free market solutions.
Bush repeatedly warned that government entities in the mortgage industry were endangering the economy. It was Barney Frank who in 2007 said that was not the case and even said anyone suggesting such things was causing such a crises.
If people want more free market capitalism than Bush provided— let’s not forget his effort to privatize SS— which republicans refused to back him on— then go ahead. But the inane effort to recast Bush as a socialist is pro leftist pro Obama hackery— no matter what the source.
SHEESH...what idiots! FREE Markets are the BEST....WHEN YOU HAVE THEM....we haven’t had a “Free market” since, what....1992??? Or even before that.
The sins of the media isn’t so much following trends or having faith in free markets but one of sloth. Seems that they do little more than fill in templates and seldom ask the hard questions. Few stories go deeper than the requisite sound bites.
This is only part of the story and usually the small excuse they use to hide the bigger one. The big one is that a major portion of advertising revenue collected by the news media was from real estate related industries. From home/condo developers, to realtors, to financials, to mortgage brokers, to home loan services, etc, etc... on and on and on. They didn't want to bite the hand that feed it so reporting against all the criminal and fraudulent activities going on within those industries was silenced. Many could see the problems coming from a mile away, but the majority of the media was dead silent to protect their golden goose. Only now that all the advertising revenue has bottomed out, let the finger pointing begin.
Every single dollar of that so called “expansion” was borrowed money that came due last year 2008, a disaster because we didnt have it. All he and his WASHINGTON buddies gave us was a Sea of debt. " Run up your credit cards. Dont worry about tomorrow. Didnt you have fun?? Who cares about 2009 ?we had a blast in 2005. Who cares if our house and 401K is gone now. Long live Bush"
RE “Tax cuts were the cornerstone of Bush’s success in overcoming the Clinton recession and the massive financial hit of 911. That is basic free market solutions”
Oh, you mean spending the same money and more ?? Every dime he spent was a dime he taxed someone. Your silly argument that Bush gave us free lunch makes Obama the greatest president that ever lived, for spending EVEN MORE money he didnt raise or have
RE:Even his Tarp 1 had a payback for taxpayers and stopped short of half expenditure [350 billion].
No, you didnt say that.
Your post is the usual fare of hyperbole. Most of the people buying houses kept their mortgages and their homes.
7 percent screwed up and frankly, in most cases they deserve to be busted by the free markets. Pretending like it is “Bush’ fault” is pure fantasy and a further flight from the harsh truth of the invisible hand brought about by our individual rendezvous with responsibility.
Tax cuts are spending someone else’s money? I think you have absolutely outed yourself as an Obamabot now.
Tax cuts are limits on the Government’s capacity to tax MY money. The money did not belong to the Government and then get released to me. You try to recover by saying tax cuts are funded by taxing people. What a silly non-sequitir.
I did say that about Tarp 1. Tarp 2 has no payback and is has no known ceiling to expenditure. It could have already quadrupled the spending of Tarp 1. We simply are not allowed to know the full implementation of Tarp 2.
Tarp 2 is all democrat spending.
Dropped arguments: social security privatization.
How much are Pro Obama organizations paying you to post here at Free Republic?
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