News reporting and the credit crunch

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Anonymous_IHB

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<p>Anyone else notice lately, that all the credit crunch reporting seems to be on blogs? I haven't seen any in the paper or major homepages. That seems weird, if the credit crunch is worse now than in September. Is it just that there's other news to cover now that people like reading better? (ex. steroid report) Or is it just because it's the Christmas shopping season (ie. keep the viewers happy - and make a lot showing them ads. Click thru and buy - the more you buy, the more we made in ad revenue?).</p>

<p>http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278482</p>
 
I disagree completely. I was actually just thinking this morning as I was reading the WSJ, how an amazing number of articles and opinion columns over the past few days have been right on the money, so to speak, about the credit situation.
 
<p>Hmm, maybe it's because I read everything online. I mean, I see the coordinating bank money auction, citigroup SIV news, but I don't see "Credit Crunch worse than 9/11, worse than Sept" type headlines like I do at <a href="http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/12/discount-rate-spread-increases.html">http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/12/discount-rate-spread-increases.html</a> or <a href="http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/232095">http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/232095</a></p>

<p>As a sample, going to the homepages right now:</p>

<p>on yahoo - nothing about housing, the economy, or credit crunch at all</p>

<p>on msn - Dumbest home-renovation traps , <a href="http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomeFinancing/HomeFinancingDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=5847372&GT1=10719">Hot new mortgages that pay you back </a>, <a href="http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/071213markets.aspx">Stocks bounce back from big losses</a>, <a href="http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/News/StockMarketsWildRideDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=5869064">Big banks vulnerable to takeover</a> and those are all in the minor links sections, not the big attention grabbing sections.</p>

<p>I mean, for the average person reading it who doesn't really get it, the message is likely like "Everything's fine". </p>

<p>It's not like "OMG, what's happening? I should cut back on my Xmas shopping and start saving and paying off my credit cards...".</p>

<p>Then again, it's probably better that way. Things are bad enough without the contagon of fear making it even worse.</p>

<p> Although, there are these quotes from the "Hot new mortgages that pay you back" article (pasted below). Guess we taxpayers are going to get to bite it three times (taxes for Ginnie Mae backing, and taxes to cover the daily expenses, and taxes to cover medical expenses) when they can't tap their house for a rainy day because it was already tapped out to vacation and stuff.</p>

<p>"Taking out a reverse mortgage to travel or spoil grandchildren is a far cry from just a few years ago, when such products generally were considered loans of last resort for seniors to avoid foreclosure or taxes to cover inflated living costs . "</p>

<p>""Last month, Ginnie Mae, the federal agency charged with making real-estate investment more attractive to institutional investors, announced plans to roll out a standardized government bond issue backed by reverse mortgages -- a key step in creating a secondary market that could help lower borrowers' costs and increase the loans' availability. "</p>
 
The MSM is more reactionary and passive now than ever. I would argue that outside of a few outlets like the WSJ (who focus on financials, so they tend to have more well-versed reporters in this area), one of their biggest challenges right now is the blow to the newspaper industry - they can't keep nearly as many reporters on staff these days, so there are fewer people covering more things at once and resources are spread out very thin.





That's where blogs can play a big role - anyone can post and debate there, regardless of whether they're in the media or not. Many of the people who are posting on successful blogs have knowledge far beyond anything a reporter could be expected to have (if a reporter had the same knowledge, they would be too expensive to keep), so they can have better information and analysis than the MSM. It's nice to see a freer exchange of ideas. I'm not saying abandon the regular news sources, but just understand that it's not necessarily telling the whole picture like it used to.
 
It never told the whole picture. In every event I saw from 60s demonstrations and Balto and DC riots, to more recent tamer stuff, the media got it all wrong. Or, they saw something different from what I saw!
 
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