CBS calls market drop "disastrous"

Dan Gainor of the Business & Media Institute writes that coverage of the stock market drop earlier this week was more doomsday on CBS than its competitors at ABC and NBC.

Gainor wrote, “Such gloom and doom didn’t infect all of the media. ABC’s February 28 ‘Good Morning America’ had reporter Betsy Stark mixing her downbeat metaphors. ‘The nightmare on Wall Street began as a nose dive in Shanghai.’

“But soon, anchor Diane Sawyer was looking for more knowledgeable help. ‘Our version of calling 911 is to bring in, from Ariel Capital Management, Mellody Hobson,’ said Sawyer.

“Sawyer continued her own negative outlook, talking about ‘the bottom simply dropping out, the market dropping off the face of the earth.’ Then Hobson intervened, explaining that part of the decline was the result of a big mid-day drop because of backed-up orders. ‘It was really just a technical glitch. It was an expensive three minutes,’ Hobson explained.

“She went even further, showing how the market had been doing well since last year. ‘The last seven months, the stock market has been straight up. It’s really unprecedented that we’ve seen this kind of straight-up run. In many ways, the volatility is normal and we haven’t had it and it’s come back,’ Hobson added.”The February 27 ‘NBC Nightly News’ also turned to the experts. The network brought in CNBC star reporter Maria Bartiromo, who explained ‘three factors’ for the decline. Bartiromo said a sell-off in the Shanghai Composite Index, lower durable goods sales and world tension were all to blame for the drop.”

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