Seattle biz media missed downfall of mortgage company

Michael van Baker, writing on the Seattlest.com web site, noted that most of the Seattle business media missed noticing the problems that led to the failure of an Eastside mortgage company. The Seattle Times business reporter Elizabeth Rhodes had the story this weekend.

Van Baker wrote, “We note that the local business media never saw it coming, due to the proximity of their lips with the company’s ass.

“To the Puget Sound Business Journal, Merit’s founder Scott Greenlaw was ‘an up-and-coming businessman,’ the Times points out. In 2004 Washington CEO magazine proclaimed Merit one of the best firms in the state to work for, and the next year, the PSBJ named Merit a finalist for its Eastside Business of the Year award. Greenlaw made the sports section of the Seattle Times for a profile of a young go-getter who made good.

“We’re not mortgage geeks, but trust us, this whole story makes for gripping reading. Okay, don’t trust us. How about this: ‘Some wonder if the company’s demise hinged on its practice of hiring jocks and stunning but inexperienced young loan officers and managing them loosely.'”

Read more here.