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Here’s my take on a recent story of apparent plagiarism at the New York Times.  Some are probably conjuring up memories of Jayson Blair.  However, I see something different, namely a battle regarding the credibility of independent financial blogs like mine as a news source.
The fact is most American newspapers and television stations are owned [...]

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That’s how my friend Jeff described the most recent flap over a banker allegedly using religion to defend the industry.
If you haven’t caught it, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was quoted in the Sunday London Times as saying “we have a social purpose,” in referring to the banking industry. What caught everyone’s eye was the [...]

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Today, I came across two attempts to clarify allegedly misleading articles in the press. Both clarifications were made in regard to how the banking system clean-up in the U.S. is proceeding. I will present them to you in as neutral a tone as I can muster.  However, I should say I am sceptical as to [...]

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This comes via the Washington Post:
The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England’s most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks.
After down-to-the-wire negotiations did not produce millions of dollars in union concessions, [...]

Last night I featured a video from Jon Stewart that skewered CNBC, and specifically Jim Cramer. The video is quite funny as Jon Stewart’s show is a comedy show.

However, since that segment aired, Jon Stewart has decided to end the comedy and take a much harder and more serious tone on this issue. Today I would like to highlight last night’s Jon Stewart interview with Jim Cramer because it is not funny. It is an indictment of CNBC, of Jim Cramer, and of the entire financial media as a complicit enabler of the most prolific credit bubble in history.

My video for tonight is this funny segment of Jon Stewart that is a follow-up to his famous takedown of CNBC and Rick Santelli. Enjoy.

The Tribune was simply over-leveraged with a balance sheet made for this age of debt, leverage and bubbles. Note the lack of equity and the enormous debt load. Why would anyone, especially someone as savvy as Sam Zell load up a declining business with this much debt? Was it greed, hubris? It seems inexplicable to me.

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In a shocking news story, the Wall Street Journal reports that the media company Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, is exploring bankruptcy.  While advertising revenue has contracted significantly, impacting all major media companies, it was not expected that this would lead to bankruptcy.  Below is a snippet of the Journal story.
Tribune Co. is [...]

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A heck of a lot of people in the United States did not expect Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for President. Amongst all of his disadvantages, being Black has to rank as the most important. Race is the third rail in U.S. politics and still casts a pall over electoral politics. [...]

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I was just listening to the Podcast of the Diane Rehm Show’s Friday Round-Up (real media file here) and I heard one of the three press ‘pundits’ (Eamon Javers, Eleanor Clift, and Stephen Hayes) defending the shoddy and fearful work of the White House press corps leading up to the war. Scott McClellan wrote [...]