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Friday, July 18, 2008

Wall Street meltdown: Media's third-toughest beat

Wall Street meltdown: Media's third-toughest beat

Commentary: Journalists have covered a stream of depressing financial news

By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
Last update: 12:04 a.m. EDT July 18, 2008
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, the most demanding assignment in journalism this year has been covering the meltdown of the U.S. financial system.
Talk about a depressing, fast-moving beat. Let's recap with some headlines from Wall Street:
Financial firms have taken about $380 billion in write-downs worldwide. Subprime problems evolve into a full-fledged fiasco. Proud, old Bear Stearns has to beg for a buyer, while Lehman Brothers (LEH:
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
Last: 19.11+0.21+1.11%
4:01pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
LEH 19.11, +0.21, +1.1%) teeters. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch (MER:
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc
Last: 30.91+0.18+0.59%
4:00pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
MER 30.91, +0.18, +0.6%) and Wachovia (WB:
Wachovia Corp
Last: 12.97-0.47-3.50%
4:01pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
WB 12.97, -0.47, -3.5%) all fire their top executives. This week, regulators are talking about limiting naked shorting of shares in Fannie Mae (FNM:
Fannie Mae
Last: 13.40+2.47+22.60%
4:01pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
FNM 13.40, +2.47, +22.6%) and Freddie Mac (FRE:
Freddie Mac
Last: 9.18+0.85+10.20%
4:02pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
FRE 9.18, +0.85, +10.2%) . By the time you read this, something else entirely may be in the spotlight. Read related MarketWatch column.
Video: The Business News Rollercoaster



One of the toughest beats in journalism has been chronicling Wall Street's meltdown -- and the media have met the challenge of covering a fast-moving world of unending stream of depressing news. (July 18)
"I've been doing this for almost 40 years," said Allan Sloan, a top writer for Time Warner's (TWX:
time warner inc com
Last: 14.70+0.05+0.34%
4:00pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
TWX 14.70, +0.05, +0.3%) Fortune magazine. "What's been going on is the most dangerous -- and weird -- [financial] market. And the stock market is the least of it."
The flow of scary news "just doesn't go away," Sloan marveled. "It sends a shiver down your spine. People are losing faith in deposit insurance."
The seemingly endless stream of gloomy financial news has posed special challenges to journalists. I interviewed two of the best: Sloan and Daniel Gross, who succeeded Sloan at Washington Post's (WPO:
The Washington Post Company
Last: 597.00-10.00-1.65%
4:03pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
WPO 597.00, -10.00, -1.6%) Newsweek and also writes for online magazine Slate.
Fast news cycle
What has made an impression on Gross is how quickly everything is changing.
For instance, the collapse of Bear Stearns, one of Wall Street's proudest investment banks, was a major news story for weeks. "Now," Gross mused, "I walk past the Bear Stearns building and don't give it a second thought."
That's because so many fresh headlines have been written since then. Some Wall Street pundits have speculated that Lehman could suffer a similar fate.
Gross sees bloggers playing a bigger role in reporting on the latest financial woes than in previous Wall Street fiascos.
"This is a story made for bloggers because there are so many manifestations of credit problems popping up: car sales, student loans, foreclosures in California, layoffs at Merrill Lynch," he said. "The best blogs scour the Internet for bits and pieces that might seem random and then, by aggregating them, seem coherent."
In addition to newspapers and some magazines, Gross regularly reads such blogs as Irvine Housing and Calculated Risk.
Gross praised Grant's Interest Rate Observer, long a financial-news bible, by saying that "James Grant was one of the only people who nailed this story in all its complexity, ahead of the curve." Gross also complimented The Wall Street Journal's comprehensive coverage of the Bear Stearns and Lehman stories. (The Journal, like MarketWatch, the publisher of this column, is a unit of News Corp. (NWS:
news corp cl b
Last: 14.40-0.13-0.89%
4:03pm 07/18/2008
Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
NWS 14.40, -0.13, -0.9%) )
For financial journalists, the biggest challenge may be trying to accumulate instant expertise in so many areas.
"You have to get a primer on Fannie and Freddie," lamented Gross. "Next week, it's going to be the FDIC. Before, it was the Fed and the discount window. It has been a rolling problem."
Seeking out the truffles
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