Financial media: The Wild West of misinformation

Toronto Star contributing columnist Frank Giustra writes about the problems he currently sees in financial and investment news.

Giustra writes, “Although there are plenty of seasoned commentators opining on this stuff, there is an equal number of folks who will urge you to sell or mortgage everything you own to fill your boots with assets like bitcoin. There is little doubt some of these ‘experts’ are crossing the line from misinformation to disinformation. And the people interviewing them are hardly hardcore journalists, usually lobbing softball questions or cheerfully and blatantly leading the witness. The result is that thousands of novice investors take the advice at face value and get fleeced like lambs.

“You may wonder how this behaviour is allowed to continue year after year without any public outrage. There are laws, but they are loose enough to allow the mainstream media’s financial entertainers of the world to operate within them.

“There are two distinct possibilities as to why the laws aren’t stricter. Firstly, Wall Street and the media are all about money and they will always enable each other to exist and prosper. Additionally, the media controls the messaging. Have you ever wondered how Wall Street got bailed out after the 2008 crisis at the expense of the taxpayer and no one went to jail? Did anyone see the financial media putting up a stink?”

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