Credit NYT's Morgenson for SEC's charges against Countrywide CEO

Dean Starkman of the Columbia Journalism Review believes credit should be given to New York Times business journalist Gretchen Morgenson for the SEC charges against former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Starkman writes, “Others did good work on Countrywide, to be sure (See Conde Nast Portfolio [R.I.P.] on how Mozilo sprinkled mortgage favors on the politically powerful). But Morgenson conducted the nearest thing in business journalism to a crusade, and I mean that in the best possible way, banging out more than three dozen stories, centered at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, that documented the predatory practices of the nation’s largest lender, the brand name of all brand names. These kinds of crusades are out of favor in the business press. Too bad.

“Prior to the crash, portrayals of Mozilo dwelled on his rags-to-riches rise, Bronx-born butcher’s boy makes good. And if he was depicted as somewhat pugnacious, well, that was just part of the All-American narrative.

“But that was only part of the story, and not nearly the most important part. Spurred by ferocious demand for mortgages from Wall Street’s securitization machine, Countrywide, like its lender brethren, pushed products that Mozilo himself, we learn from the SEC’s complaint, referred to as ‘poison’ and ‘toxic.'”

Read more here.