Monday, August 4, 2008

Sins of the media in the subprime crisis

That the media are occasionally involved in what turns out
to be huge financial and other problems is nothing new.
Here two articles that, put together, make up an own story,
they are current history.

A pretty stern critique originally and surprisingly published
in the editor & publisher, the trade magazine of the US publishing
industry, Danny Schechter asks:

Where Was Medie When Sub-prime Disaster Unfolded?
"“It is somewhat surprising,” Larry Elliott, economics editor of London’s
The Guardian observed recently, “that there is not already rioting in the
streets, given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the
expense of ordinary Americans.”

and, further examines the explanations delivered once the scandal broke:
"
A New York Times columnist even admitted that experts and
advocates first warned them in 2001 that predatory lending practices
were devastating poor neighborhoods but the issue was not covered
in any depth for five years. ... "


Somehow fitting to the above article, here one when,
eventually, the NYT sent a reproter round to a concumer advocacy
office, in February 2008:
Someone to Speak for Borrowers in Trouble
2/17/2008