Categories: OLD Media Moves

Will Buffett/Sokol kill CEO porn by business media?

Gary Weiss writes for TheStreet.com that the recent scandal involving a Berkshire Hathaway executive purchasing stock of a company that was about to be acquired by Berkshire should dull, if not outright kill, the media’s fawning over CEOs.

Weiss writes, “Sure, rich people are inherently fascinating, virtuous and fantastic individuals. Sure, billionaire investors can do no wrong. The media acted that way before the financial crisis of 2008 and still does. I don’t expect that to change everywhere, but I do think that Buffett is a good place to start.

“The reason the Buffett Kiss-Up is such a seminal event in the investment calendar is that the media made it so. We hang on his every word, treat Buffett and his sidekick Charlie Munger like demigods, ignoring their flaws, to an extent that is sometimes a little creepy. Thank heavens Buffett has stumbled. Perhaps henceforth he will be treated just the way he deserves to be treated: as a money manager who is capable of making mistakes, sometimes big ones.

“Now, I don’t want to go overboard. Buffett is still Buffett, he handled the David Sokol Affair with aplomb. He threw his errant deputy under the bus so fast that you’d think the poor sap was coated with Lubrizol or some other fine lubricant. Everybody else on the planet thought it was insider trading when Sokol pitched the company to Buffett even though he owned shares of the company, but the Oracle of Omaha thought it wasn’t such a terrible thing. He said so initially. It was a bad move, and he knows it, at least now.”