Biz press has acted responsibly

Dean STarkman of the Columbia Journalism Review comments Thursday that he believes the business media has portrayed the Wall Street turmoil accurately and hasn’t exacerbated the situation.

Starkman writes, “Critiquing the business press right now, as I’ve alluded to elsewhere,is a bit like critiquing the London fire department during the Blitz: All the major institutions are on fire. The press is scrambling to cover them. What are they supposed to do?

“Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and American International Group (the seizure of which, for me, is so far the most unbelievable event of them all) were the Buckingham Palaces and London Towers of the financial world.

“What words would you use?

“The question is understandable, though. Isn’t everything always the ‘worst-ever’? And don’t we seem to get these ‘historic’ calamities every five years or so? Readers might be forgiven for thinking news outlets exaggerate the importance of what they’re writing about for a lot of reasons but perhaps mostly because they deal with these institutions and events everyday, and they’re too close to the story.”

Read more here.