Should business journalists be criticizing SarbOx

Sarbanes-Oxley, the federal law that requires public companies to be more diligent in disclosing financial and accounting information about the results, has been criticized by many in corporate America, but Reason magazine’s Brian Doherty thinks that business journalists should also be complaining about it.

Doherty writes: “Critics in academia and business journalism—and many from the corporate world itself, most of whom are reluctant to talk on the record and thereby show ‘bad faith’ regarding the law—have many complaints about SarbOx, from its picayune requirements to its overall cost. While all such guesstimates should be taken with a grain of salt, one financial consulting firm, the Johnsson Group, has put the 2004 costs of SarbOx compliance at $15 billion. The critics also argue that the law’s benefits are apt to be small.”

Here is his entire article on Sarbanes-Oxley.

Other than companies who cite Sarbanes-Oxley as why they can’t disclose information to a reporter, are there other complaints from the business journalism community?