Comment by showerst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by showerst | Hacker News Reader

I think this writer is missing the point just like Cramer did on Stewart.

The New York Times doesn't have subpoena power, but there are still a non-zero number of people in power who limit their shenanigans because they're terrified of ending up on the front page.

The government has a regulatory and investigative role, but it can't go out on a hunch or a rumor, a good journalist can (Which is not to say we need witch hunts).

One good journalistic organization can help keep a whole industry honest just by the threat of really investigating things that don't add up. WSJ is good at reporting, but I can't recall the last time they cracked a scandal in the financial world. Feel free to correct me.

Would a diligent, news-y CNBC have prevented the financial crisis? I doubt it. But perhaps they could've prevented or exposed some of the most ridiculous excess. It seems every person 'in the know' I've read has said that in hindsight they thought that Madoff was on the take, they just assumed he was an insider trader.

Would this stuff sell in comparison to Jim Cramer throwing pies? I don't know. But I have a hunch that a financial dateline style report exposing Madoff as a scam would've garnered a few viewers...

Sure, everybody says that want tough, serious, thoughtful journalism. But they vote with their eyeballs (and ad dollars) for the show with zany sound effects.

CNBC is itself a business, after all.

And that is part of the problem. This news agencies are owned by large corporations, whose motivation is profit and not the telling of news. The news media are no longer a strong force in helping to shape this country. It is not in their interest to ask the hard questions and do strong investigative reporting.

I was listening to an interesting pod cast on just this subject (http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/csarchive) if anyone is interested for a unique perspective on this.

*edit: grammar fixes

Who else would own them?

Themselves?

I am not sure what the ideal ownership is now. But CNBC is mostly owned by G.E. whose main interest in this property is making money. The desire to maximizing profits is in partial conflict with strong news reporting.

The burden does also reside on the consumers who demand more entertainment then real information.

But as they as say The people deserve the government they elect and in this case, the people deserve the entertainment they get.

CNBC knows that if they show just serious journalism, not a lot of people are going to see them, and at the end of the day, it's all a business !

Well really, their motivation is profit and not not profiting.

If their viewers actually wanted thoughtful news, the agency that provided it would profit.

Since viewers want sound effects, action, drama, and easily digestible black-and-white polemic pieces, that is what the agencies provide, and they profit.

So what's the answer? Propublica.org style journalism?

I really don't think it could have been prevented by good journalism. I see the government basically guaranteeing bank losses without adequate collateral. The government did not really know how the banks assets should be valued, but they were willing to accept the bank's word.

So basically the banks had a financial incentive to make extremely risky investments.

But still, Cramer and other journalists failed. By the time Cramer said that AIG was safe, I thought it should have been obvious that the banks had invested a lot of money in some extremely risky assets. In June that year Bear Stearns said it was spending over 3 billion to bail out one of its funds. So instead of Cramer deciding that he did not have enough enough information to evaluate AIG, and saying that, he basically decided that he had enough info to say that AIG was safe. That probably convinced a lot of people to keep their money in AIG stock.

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