Andrea Chalupa writes on BloggingStocks.com about why no stories about the economic meltdown were awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
“Even last night’s panelist, Erin Arvedlund, who first questioned Bernie Madoff’s record in 2001 in Barrons, failed to stay on top of the story. She opened the panel by saying she deeply regrets this now, but also, it must be pointed out, her reporting fell on deaf ears. What should we do, continue to push the story, report on it again and again, Diana Henriques, senior financial writer of the New York Times, asked the panel. Panelist Jon Friedman, who writes the Media Web column for MarketWatch.com, answered, yes. ‘If you do that you don’t work for the same editors I work for,’ Henriques grumbled.
“The winners for the Pulitzer Prize were announced on Monday and not a single financial reporter scored one, because they were blindsided by the biggest story in over a generation. That’s what opened last night’s panel — ten painful minutes pondering why no one in finance won when they had the biggest story. Ugh. Maybe its time for financial writers to take a hint from the Huffington Posts of the world and make advocacy the foundation of their reporting, not getting seduced by corporate jet rides and hedge fund receptions, or overwhelmed by the complexity and vastness of it all.”
Read more here.
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So why didn't Barry Ritholtz win a Pulitzer? He reported on the housing scams, mortgage scams, and CDS scams continually for two years before the crash.
And I started writing about mortgage fraud a decade ago, exposing how lenders knowingly cover it up and, yes, encourage it.
The stories launched federal investigations in South Florida, helped change state law, spurred public-private partnerships between lenders and regulators -- and for what? Look where we are now.
As one lender told me at the time, "Your stories will have a great impact for maybe a couple of years. And then it will be back to the usual."
My work was entered in the 1999 Pulitzer competition but, as some colleagues have told me, mortgage fraud doesn't particularly resonate with judges.
Try telling that to the victims in the current financial debacle. Fraud is behind much of this mess.
I think part of the reason for the lack of enough financial reporting on some of this lies in trying to juice it up enough to get readers -- and editors -- intrigued.
Prosecutors, too, will tell you that trying to present a mortgage fraud case to a jury is incredibly difficult because of the labyrinthine paper trail it requires.
Going forward, we all need to better watch over the real estate and financial industries -- whose workers don't get paid until deals close -- instead of regurgitating home sale stats they release, fawning over luxury home deals and otherwise swallowing what they choose to serve up.
Delving into appraisal management companies, how real estate salespeople "represent" (not) buyers and sellers, the changes to RESPA, subprime and Alt A and option ARM mortgages, etc. etc. is tough to make sexy.
And the industry is taking that to the bank.
There are any number of next-generation stories emerging from all this. Let's go get 'em.