Day By Day

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Fools!

So the auto execs flew in to Washington on corporate jets..., so what?

The WSJ prints this reaction:

The real story is how journalism in this country is so incompetent when it comes to any stories that deal with economics, that the best they can come up with is a "gotcha" story about CEOs and corporate jets.
What is wrong with a company like GM having a private jet for executive business? If anything, this meeting in Washington is the most important one in the company's history. Its entire business future depends on it. If you are a GM employee, would you really want the CEO stuck in Cleveland and missing the hearing that might decide the fate of the company because he missed his connection on Continental?
This story goes beyond lunacy, because it is a glaring example of how journalism has failed to accurately report the things that were happening that caused the financial meltdown. The majority of the major stories seem to follow the same themes: exuberant corporate bonuses, corporate excess and the wacky things that corporate America does (AIG going to a spa). If the media did their job, we would be a lot more informed as to why we are in the situation we are in right now. I'm still waiting.
Read it here.

Exactly. I remember a time long ago when we supposed that journalists who covered a beat were reasonably well-informed on the subject of their stories. Those days, however, are long gone. With a few exceptions, all we have left is semi-educated dolts trying to sound knowledgeable on matters about which they have not a clue.

Of course the only reason the idiot press focused on the planes was the fact that a few loathsome Congresscritters decided to make an issue of it.