Personal finance coverage is different at The Motley Fool

Personal finance coverage at The Motley Fool is different than other media because the organization holds itself accountable for its coverage, said one of the company’s co-founders on Monday evening.

“I think that’s a challenge for other organizations,” said David Gardner, who founded the Alexandria, Va.-based investing and personal finance journalism company with his brother Tom.

Gardner spoke Monday at the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in an event co-sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“I’d like to see as much on personal finance as possible,” said Gardner. “I think it’s a topic that is under treated today in the media.”

The Motley Fool is publishing more content today than it has ever before on its website, added Gardner, and 95 percent of that content is free.

However, Gardner said that its content works well in some media and not in others. He was not a big fan of personal finance coverage on television, telling the crowd, “I don’t watch CNBC.”

He also noted that he and his brother appeared once on “The View” to make stock recommendations. They were brought back eight weeks later when the stock pick — Starbucks — had fallen 33 percent and were never invited back. Since that time, the stock pick has outperformed the overall market.

“Part of the reason you don’t see the Motley Fool on television is that it is so short-term focused,” said Gardner, whose first job was writing for Louis Rukeyser’s newsletter.