Abrams Research Survey: Financial Journalists Say Media Dropped Ball On Crisis

NEW YORK — Signaling a look inward that echoes critiques of the media's performance in the months before the Iraq War, some of the nation's top financial journalists believe reporters dropped the ball as the nation's economy tumbled toward crisis mode.

Sixty-two of 100 journalists surveyed by Abrams Research, a firm started by former MSNBC chief Dan Abrams, criticized the media's work, suggesting there was an over-exuberance about the economy and a failure to connect the dots as troubles began.

"That's a very telling and interesting number," Abrams said Thursday. "Some of the comments we got were really fascinating. I think there's a lot of self-examination going on within the financial media about what happened and why."

The journalists questioned over the past few weeks, mostly reporters from organizations such as CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and others, were promised their identities would be kept confidential in return for their opinions.

They split almost evenly on who deserved the most blame for the crisis: 45 said banks and 44 said regulators. Only two believed that the media was mostly to blame, and nine pointed their fingers at consumers.

Said one journalist: "Everyone dropped the ball. But the media does not have nearly as much blood on its hands as the financial industry and government."

Another reporter said that, just like in the dot-com era, basic rules of gravity were ignored. What goes up, must come down.

"I blame myself in part," one reporter said. "I wrote about many of the components of the bust, including the opacity of derivatives (where does the risk go?), the extremely low interest rates that fueled housing, and declining lending standards. But I failed to put it all together and see how really, really bad things would get."

Yet there was a substantial minority that resisted blame being placed on the media.

"The media, like real life, is full of a diversity of opinions and stories," a journalist wrote. "The warning signs were there, and stories were written about the looming dangers. I find it offensive that there's a notion that the entire business press can be criticized for a failure to see the future once we're in a troubled climate."

The survey found that 42 of the journalists believe at least three Fortune 1000 executives will be indicted during the coming year for their roles in the financial crisis. Abrams said he was surprised that the number was so high; 27 of the journalists believed there would be no indictments.

"Unfortunately, stupidity and venality aren't criminal offenses," one journalist wrote.

Only 30 of the journalists said they thought the current situation will come to be known as a depression. Thirty-one of the journalists said the recession would end by the beginning of next year; most believed it would stretch longer.

Comments

[djgonebad]

Journalism, these day's, needs electro-sh­ock-therap­y. Most have lost their heart beat and will to live. Maybe from years up the Neo-Cons a$$e$?!!

[kid5rivers2]

Either dropped it or didn't have the bols to carry it.

[greyseal in tampa]

Holy Jeebus! What HASN'T the media dropped the ball on?

[ceasespin]

As reported by Huffington Post, Abrams is generally up to no good.
http://ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/a2f4cb07d9e89eec77a9b9de68e1f2d3-4.html

[sleepdawg]

I think the question needs to be asked, who do the "journalists" work for? They are, after all, employees. For the most part. Few of them have the security to say to their publishers - wealthy people - this is wrong, and I'm going to write about it. Especially not in the climate the publishing and broadcasting corps have been working with.

It must also be said that there are many plants within the news organizations. People put there by organizations linked to the Republican party. Shills.

At this point, it's probably best to let the whole system fail and then reboot it into something else.

[MANK]

You don't understand the importance of Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears or OJ to our well being as a nation. THIS is breaking news. As a matter of fact, they should be in the president's cabinet. Then maybe people will listen to the news or read a newspaper or demand to know what is going on in our government.

[billsmile]

There's no media these days, just corporations.

[billsmile]

There's no media there days, just corporations.

[FairTalk]

The media was enthralled with bashing China over the Olympics, and were busy being shills for the bogus Free Tibet Movement. Dutifully parratoting the dalai Lama, who himself parrots the propaganda from the State departmett, and, oh, btw, is also a paid CIA agent, who lies, lies, lies.

During this time, anti CNN exposed all the doctored photos, videos, and false facts that the mainstream media busied itself, all the whiole serious issues went uncovered, like the economy, the financial markets, housing, unemployment, the Gaza ceace fire, the blockade of gaza, the election of the Maoist, Prachanda in nepal, etc, etc, etc.

So, this is nothing new, because the mainstream media has abandoned journalism for cheap expose, and readily alows itsely to be the megaphone for government propaganda.

We should all be concerned. And many are. I hope this becomes a serious topic for exploration on HP.

[rabiddog6708]

The media has turned tabloid and there's almost no investigative journalism anymore.

[MANK]

They are done but appear on TV channels that have 3 numbers in them.

[larry278]

However ProPublica cooperates with newspapers of record such the LAT & less august papers. Investigative journalism & Pro Publica live on the web. Similar sites could serve as a clearing house for investigative reporters when their paper folds. For an appropriate fee you could rent the experience & words of experienced reporters. Closing bureaus & firing reporters can be costly as a paper's circulation drops. Advertisers have been known to avoid low circulation/usage media outlets.

[Bettysdad]

This is sorta like a chef blaming the restaurant's owner for his bad cooking.

Business journalists are generally cheerleaders for the system, and almost never uncover a problem before it explodes.

Not enough fawning articles could have been written about Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc.

Financial journalists are really just PR agents.

[markflour]

Are you kidding? They're missing the story TODAY. Where is all the bail out money? DUH!

Why don't they hold congress responsible for 'real' oversight?

Otherwise these bankers, Wall street crooks and Auto-Executives will continue rob us blind.

[ChicagoDMT]

Yes!

Until the you know what hit the fan, the press was still touting the economy as a Republican success story. In his first appearance at a debate, Fred Thompson referred to the state of the economy as "the greatest story never told." News stories about the widening discrepancy between the wealthy and the rest of us were treated as human interest filler.

The Main Street Media is dead. Long live Blogs.

[LeeCalif]

Hey Dan-Man !!

Good to see you. Looks like that new company is going great.

Here, the journalists think they did a horrible job (because they did ) and yet now, all over again, the journalists are doing a horrible job re: balanced coverage of the Israeli ceasefire truce pullout on November 4th and the subsequent god-awful consequences the Gazans are suffering.

Do journalists really have such a short critical-thinking attention span or are they simply dishonest ?

[steve12]

Let's see, the media drops the ball on weapons of mass destruction. They drop the ball on torture. They drop the ball on the economic collapse. I'd like to ask what the hell are they doing? I guess MSM prefers to pay the anchor stars millions of dollars and forget about the grunt reporters that dig deep to get the real stories. We have more news and less helpful information than ever before. Very sad for democracy.