Lions Gate earnings: Up or down?

Marek Fuchs, The Business Press Maven for TheStreet.com, uncovered one of the ugly incidents in business journalism in the past week: Two wire services reporting a company’s earnings in two completely different ways.

I’ll let Fuchs, who in my opinion is quickly rising among business journalism critics, take it from here:

“Woe are we. Here are the headlines, and remember, as always: The business media confuses. You break your back trying to decide.

“Pick the headline behind Door No. 1, from AP:

“Lions Gate Fiscal 2006 Earnings Plunge

“Or, 51 minutes later, the six-word strip of wisdom from Reuters:

“Lions Gate DVDs boost fourth quarter profit

“Rather than take on the convoluted Associated Press story — doing so wouldn’t be sporting for a great hunter of garbled business journalism like The Business Press Maven — let’s just graciously move on. Instead, let’s congratulate Lions Gate for reporting a solid quarter and raising next year’s numbers. Reuters, if only because the competition is thin, you’ve earned (or backed into) the coveted Business Press Maven ‘Nod of Approval.'”

Read more here. Fuchs also takes on a Motley Fool article with flawed math about Google.