Do we have anything left to say?

The Ideoblog, written by law professor Larry Ribstein, notes that in the past two days, both Joe Nocera and Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times have both taken to criticizing sell-side analysts.

Ribstein writes, “Neither writer gets into the underlying structural causes of the problem (though Nocera, at least, does offer some useful insights) or offers anything like a solution. Even worse: the NYT’s leading financial journalists, trusted with some of the most high-priced space in today’s journalism, could not think of different things to write about on consecutive days. It was probably just a coincidence, but one that indicates the paucity of the coverage of the mainstream financial press.

“Unlike my previous work on Morgenson, I don’t offer today’s column as an example of deliberately slanted reporting. Rather, it’s just a sad example of the state of the art in the mainstream media, at least for business reporting. If they can’t write about some spectacular fraud – if they’re left with reporting on what really matters to business (in this case, the mechanisms of market efficiency) – they don’t seem to have much left to say.”

Ribstein’s solution? See here.