WSJ headline about airline mergers misleading

TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs has a problem with a Wall Street Journal headline that reads, “Mergers Benefit Airlines; Shame About the Fliers.”

Fuchs wrote, “Why? Because despite the excited coverage about how much the big airlines stand to benefit from merging, since deregulation a generation ago, the history of merged airlines has been overwhelmingly bad.

“We’ll get to who and why in a moment, but first let’s look at why you are sold a false bill of goods with articles like this that talk about how magnificent an airline merger would be. In this article, the journalist, like many, simply falls for the story line that the little guy gets hurt while the big guy benefits.

“Of course, this story resonates, unfortunately, because it is true all too often. But that means it also gets overlaid on a lot of stories by crusading journalists, or one simply in need of a default story line, when it doesn’t apply. This, too, is where political leanings come into play in business coverage. Not in overt favoritism, but in more subtle colorings.”

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