Fawning coverage from Davos

TheDeal.com executive editor Yvette Kantrow writes about the overly positive coverage that has emanated from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during the past week.

Kantrow wrote, “Among the media, The Wall Street Journal was one of the few outlets to note that irony: ‘Of course, most of the Davos crowd got the economy wrong last January-not a great return on the ticket price of Sfr20,000 [$18,090], on top of the 40,000-franc membership fee,’ it intoned in a Davos preview story.

“The reporting media, of course, doesn’t pay those steep fees, but attending Davos is not cheap. Indeed, the BBC came under fire in British newspapers last year for spending £50,000 ($97,800) to send 37 journalists to the confab. But even in these times of cost cutting, big media remains undeterred in its coverage, with everyone from Forbes to the Journal to the BBC to The Times offering Davos blogs (which compete with the World Economic Forum’s own Davos blog, not to mention its Webcasts, podcasts and vodcasts.) On its ‘Davos Diary’ blog, The Times boasts that it and the International Herald Tribune sent a team of eight reporters and editors to the event; business columnist Floyd Norris is also there, as is op-ed writer Thomas Friedman, a fixture on the Davos scene and a panel moderator.

“What the Gray Lady and other outlets spend on all this coverage-and what they get in return-isn’t very clear. Perhaps the keen press interest is a holdover from the old days, when Brangelina gave the event a Hollywood sheen. This year, as the media has told us again and again, that star power is gone and the talk has turned serious. But don’t worry. You can still find out whether it snowed in Davos today.”

Read more here.