No one knew the crash was coming except the people who knew

The press are beginning to notice that they didn’t notice the flames lapping at the financial nation’s ankles these past several years. This is something of a ritual; and a bit of a peculiar one at that, since newspapers have always been much better at reporting what has already happened than what is about to, and have the attention span of goldfish. The exception is war, which hardly ever catches the papers by surprise.

But we digress. Marcus Brauchli, once a Wall Street Journal honcho and now the Washington Post’s executive editor, offered his regrets on the subject to Howard Kurtz, widely known as the most forgiving press critic in the business, saying that the stories he didn’t assign and which might have prefigured our little difficulty involved “really difficult issues to convey to a popular audience.”

In other words, the lack of coverage is mostly your fault for being too stupid to understand the highly technical circumstance of banks and other financial institions drowning in their own crap, had Mr. Brauchli’s newspapers mentioned it. In fact the whole crisis is your fault, as will be the depression that results from your potential failure to keep shopping. Speaking of which, that depression will be needing a name. “Great” is taken. Thoughts? “Percy?”

‘Tis the season for Kurz’s forgiveness to get a real workout; it’s almost time to begin the end-of-year self-flagellation parties, where journalists get together on panels, most of which are hosted by Kurz, who works for 18 press outlets, and decide which among the stories they missed or blew warrant corporal punishment. But they never actually get to the spanking, only the tearful forgiveness part, and then they go forth and do it all over again.

This year the lead screwup will of course be the failure to cover the impending crash. Since they’re still failing utterly to get ahead of the story, it’s quite likely that next year’s lead screwup will be the same thing. We might want to hope that there’s nothing more noteworthy on the horizon that they’re not covering because, as Mr. Brauchli complains, reportering and editoring is hard work.

Like this post? Share it!

6 Responses to “No one knew the crash was coming except the people who knew”

1. 1
   Keifus Says:
   

   Put me in for “Dep X.” Seems to have the right generational feel.

   It’s sure reassuring that the same people who spent the last five years nodding sagely about exciting investments but who couldn’t spot a housing bubble are now appointed to explain the current meltdown. Good times.

   October 6th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
2. 2
   Montag Says:
   

   i noticed housing prices were getting outrageous in my area 8 years ago, and saw trouble brewing two or three years ago when i was hearing radio advertisements for 50 year mortgages, and ‘interest only’ mortgages, and watched my friend take out one of those ARMs. i had wanted to blog about it then, but didn’t due to time constraints.

   what’s the line here? i don’t think anybody could have anticipated the breaching of the levees?

   October 7th, 2008 at 2:33 am
3. 3
   Weldon Berger Says:
   

   Montag, there were a few analysts and other institutional critics sounding the alarms four or five years ago, but newspapers were loathe to quote them. I remember reading some bloggers who were predicting famine and plague around then as well, as in “if we don’t act now, the floods will come.” So, yeah, it’s one of those things: no one could have predicted the levees would fail except the people who repeatedly and loudly did so. But trust me, they will not receive prominent mention during the post-mortem discussions.

   Keifus, that has promise: breezy yet meaningful, sort of.

   October 7th, 2008 at 6:23 am
4. 4
   Montag Says:
   

   But trust me, they will not receive prominent mention during the post-mortem discussions.

   yeah, cause who wants to listen to some smug asshole come on and say “i told you so,” now?

   (i’m being facetious here, of course.)

   i really appreciate this site, Weldon, keep up all the good work.

   October 7th, 2008 at 8:08 am
5. 5
   Weldon Berger Says:
   

   Thanks for the kind words, Montag.

   Regarding the people who were right, the whole point of the end-of-year self-flagellation orgies is to avoid at all costs any suggestion of systemic problems, which is to say that every blown story is the result of a specific failing that can be pointed to and dismissed as a one-time thing. Acknowledging people who were waving a giant story in their collective face is something the press would prefer not to do because it raises the questions they wish to avoid. < end pedantry. >

   October 7th, 2008 at 11:01 am
6. 6
   BTC News: If It Says ‘News,’ It Must Be True » Blog Archive » The single biggest bit of graft since the Soviet Union was sold Says:
   

   […] being ridiculed are the ones standing up to say that it doesn’t make sense. And the press wonder how they miss the big […]

   October 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm