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

[moAb]

Don't trust any of them. Verify what you learn from any financial/­business/e­conomic source. And realize that there are such complex social networks in play as well as vast sums of money, all of which lead to conflicts of interest at many levels. This results in shoddy, incomplete, or downright misleading reporting.

[SammyD]

that's why networks and newspapers need to go bye bye From the war to the election to the financial crisis....­..no reporting or facts. Who's "teaching" journalism these days?

[tomas0808]

Yale and Harvard apparently

[gageeandbaba]

the problem with the Media, the financial institutions etc is that they are run by the same type of people, they all run in the same circles, and they don't want to expose their family and friends. THAT'S what is wrong with our system. Family protects family.

[ImOnFire]

I think its important to point out that while in general the media dropped the ball on the looming financial crisis lets no forget about the influence of conservative media here. Conservative media has risen to great heights over the past 8 years in terms of influence. As the financial situation began to deteriorate it was most often conservative pundits and conservative media in general stating that the economy was fine and statements to the contrary were just liberal tactics to make the President and his administration look bad during the political season.

This puts the rest of the media outlets in a precarious position. Do they continue pumping out stories about the economy knowing that to those influenced by this conservative mindset they will look biased? Or do they try to walk the tight rope and try to appease everyone? Because ratings and profits rule they walked the tight rope and then in the aftermath get trashed for running their business like a business.

This is why more people should be listening to NPR, the less the source is profit driven the more reliable the information and the way it is reported.

[tomas0808]

Exactly. Corporate influence in the media, from the right (Fox) or the left (CNBC) is corrosive to the truth. The problem with an increasingly complicated world is that people don't bother to discover the truth, they just pick a side and listen to their sound bites

We see how positive an influence corporate influence is on healthcare and education too. Smart countries know this and have real leaders protecting their people from it

[ManwithaParachute]

I had a certain amount of respect for WSJ reporting until Murdoch bought them. I never have like their Editorial propaganda but now it is definitely slanting their reporting into the realm of paid lobbyists.

Wha wha the poor are stealing from the rich...Wha­.

[harry9876]

laughing. hey, just one of many they have missed. we've had the ongoing "trading situation" in the gold and silver markets for years. Its coming to a head with four -- count 'em -- four trading "entities" holding something like 65% of the current year's silver production short right now.

but the market is not manipulated according to the regulator, the CTFC. Nope. Doesn't matter that they've been flooded with letters from the regular traders, or that the trading records are circulating freely on the web.

Nope. There's no manipulation and silver is trading freely. Righto.

I expect we're going to hear another glorious round of "No one could have expected this" when the lid blows off the silver market. To be followed rapidly by the gold market where gold trades for 850 an ounce.....­.the only place in the world where it trades for 850 an ounce....o­ut in the real world, its costing more than 950 now....

but there's no manipulation there either.

I think what we have to understand is that we essentially have no regulations if the institutions -- read the big bankers -- don't want there to be regulations. And the media, now large corporations financed by the major banks, aren't going to rock the boat.

No matter how many letters, calls and emails come in .....even if they are stacked to the sky......t­he regulators aren't going to see them unless Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan say its okay to see them.

[stilton5]

Abrams is hardly a journalist or expert of any type to interpret this survey. he did put some data to a slam-dunk hypothesis, though. he oughta get rid of the ridiculous beard.

[JScott]

And in addition to all of the comments let's not forget that Rupert bought the WSJ and then sloppy journalism started there.

[DangerWillRobinson]

As with Iraq war hindsight, yet again the media is shaking their fist and groaning.. "but had we only known".

It's their job to find out and report on issues that affect citizens. They failed, and are still failing.

It is easier to report on the remarkable technology that makes Brad Pitt age in his latest Blockbuster, but c'mon guys, Katie devoted what seemed like 3 hours to it.

They don't get it. Whether it's run of the mill MSM or financial reporting they S*CK.

[gdaerin]

*only* 30 believe we're in a depression?!

[NYCIC]

The war and the financial crises. That's two for two. Our vaunted fifth estate. Great work, guys! Don't change a thing!

[Belisarius]

I disagree, sort of.

The information was available in the financial media. I saw articles in June or July 2007 that stated that the banks had bundled billions of mortgage backed securities and for the first time, had not been able to place them. The reason: people were suspicious of the valuations. Previous issues were suspect. There were similar articles on problems with credit default swaps. Financials starting getting walloped by October and the stock market gyrations started looking like a car whose wheels are coming off.

It's true, that few in the media connected the dots, no one raised red flags, but the info was there. By December 2007 it appeared to me that financials would tank. I also knew that most mutual funds had at least 20% financials, and I acted on that information.

I am no genius, I just read a lot of economic and financial stuff. The info was there.

[mizerello]

The mainstream media has failed us miserably in every way for almost 20 years. First, the fact that 94% of our media is owned by 7 corporations seems like a bit of a problem. Secondly, the media has rolled over and allowed the right wing machine run them into the ground. For the past 20 years, the clarion call of the right has been the suggestion that they are the victims of the "liberal media." They whine about the "liberal media" every day, every hour. And the press has caved in by working very hard to prove they aren't liberal. Watch any Sunday pundit show and you'll see the effect of this right wing campaign. The media is as much to blame for the Iraq Debacle as the Bushies are and the fact that they all refuse to admit their culpability is sad. They didn't start questioning the war until polls showed that the American public were tiring of it. They dropped the ball on the financial melt down because they were only too happy to cozy up to the corporate titans that brought us to financial ruin and didn't want to let the Bush administration down by reporting the facts. Shame on them all!

[lvdragonlady]

Just more of the same from a bunch of wannabe reporters that are nothing more then hacks.

[stilton5]

name mean herpes in las vegas?

[HalleBurton]

Could the reason be that the consolidated corporate media masters failed at their duties is either

1) that they are equally culpable in the destruction of our economy, or

2) that in exposing that the economic emperor had no clothes on would hurt their advertising revenues?

[fredamae]

......or "All of the above"?

I'm sorry about the lack of public trust in the media, but they brought this all on themselves by following the leader instead of being serious journalists delivering the Truth!

To even listen to them, I no longer believe them. I believe they are reporting what they are Told to report (from the top) because they want to keep their jobs, no more, no less. If I were a journalist, I hope I would have more personal pride, higher standards and a deep personal respect than to "prostitute" myself that way.

Surely there must be news orgs out there that do maintain those standards, but Where are they?

[StellaDuBois]

Some are in other countries. I live close enough to the northern border to pick up Canadian broadcasts. CBC television in general is much better than the US mainstream media (PBS and public radio exempted).