Time to be blunt about Wall Street meltdown
Marketwatch media critic Jon Friedman writes Friday that the business media covering the Wall Street crisis need to start telling it like it is instead of being reserved.
Friedman writes, “The Wall Street media may want to dispel notions that they’re merely trying to capitalize on a scary time and sell newspapers, increase their Web clicks and raise television ratings. Remember, journalists were skewered after the tech bubble burst in 2000. The public blamed the media for acting as cheerleaders for the fragile Internet stocks.
“But these days, the media are taking their good intentions too far. They’re failing to describe accurately the bloodbath (and, you bet, ‘bloodbath’ is an acceptable word, too).
“So, why, then, are financial reporters tearing up their Roget’s? Maybe they’re trying too hard to do the right thing. Perhaps this is a form of political correctness gone amok.
“Or, simply chalk it all up to wimpiness.”
Read more here.
chris, clearly i have been one of a circle of individuals who have long criticized the financial media about their relationship with Wall Street and thus their conflicts of interest in informing the public of what really exists. Unfortunately, while i agree with Friedman at a high level, I still believe he has missed the bullseye to this issue.
Few amongst wall Street writers have the capacity to actually write a story and help in presenting solutions. The media loves to point fingers and repeat th eopinions of their sources but few have the capacity to look beyond their sources, and within the regulatory structure and present options that paint both as being wrong.
Ultimately, the crisis we now live in is due to a bottom line that is colored with greed. people that have the money need to manipulate our markets and take unnecessary risk to keep it, and business writers who are looking for it and have been awed by those that have it.
This is not a crisis SABEW just came across, it is a crisis many of us presented to SABEW and SABEW chose to ignore.
No, you don’t have to publish this – after all freedom of speech means nothing today correct? The media publishes and they then regulate commentary on their publications while hiding their sins behind the US Constitution.