While executives on Wall Street and in Detroit have pointed fingers in plenty of directions since the financial crisis began crippling business--journalists are apparently willing to point fingers at themselves (as well as at executives).
According to a new survey from Abrams Research--founded by Dan Abrams, formerly of MSNBC--62 out of 100 journalists from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC and elsewhere, are critical of the job media has done--"suggesting there was an over-exuberance about the economy and a failure to connect the dots as troubles began," the AP reports.
In October, CNBC's Charlie Gasparino told Howard Kurtz: "We all failed ... What we didn't understand was that this was building up. We all bear responsibility to a certain extent."
In that same story, Kurtz makes a very accurate distinction:
After being burned by years of cheerleading before the dot-com collapse, the media warned repeatedly that the surge in housing prices might turn out to be a bubble. But the emphasis was generally on the potential toll on homeowners, not the banks that would be left holding bagfuls of bad loans.
The rest of his article is excellent.
Reader Comments Read all comments (1)
Carol King of MI 4:40PM January 14, 2009