The media's role in the financial meltdown

Jeffrey Brown of “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” talks to business journalism experts about the media’s role in the current economic crisis in light of the recent controversy surrounding CNBC.

Here is an excerpt:

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let me let Kathy Kristof weigh in here. What did you see that was done well, what not so well?

KATHY KRISTOF: Well, you know, I think all of the major publications had done a number of stories about toxic mortgages, about companies that were going way off the rails on what they were approving.

The problem is, is kind of what the other two have been just nipping at, is that we were early. And we kept on, you know, being the voice in the wilderness, the voice in the wilderness, the voice in the wilderness. And pretty soon, you say, “OK, how many times can I do that story?” And so you stop.

And we also got incredible flak toward the end of the bubble when we would write stories about toxic mortgages, because there were all sorts of bloggers who were trying to keep this fraud going. And they would just attack you, attack the people who you had quoted. They would do all sorts of things in order to stop you from publishing.

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