Financial Reporting - worse than you thougth

[Thailandnotes]

"Deal Me Out" explaining NYT's Deal Book.

http://www.thebaffler.com/past/deal_...?src=longreads

[don]

Re: Financial Reporting - worse than you thought

a few highlights . . .

on class

The conservative perception of the New York Times as a liberal newspaper isn’t totally inaccurate. It’s a newspaper by and for the Northeastern elite, and the Northeastern elite is a pretty liberal bunch, at least about most social issues. But it is by no means a left-wing paper, and while it may editorialize in favor of modest economic redistribution, its coverage and its editorial choices are plainly crafted for the Haves.

in town

Recently, the online news startup BKLYNR created a graphic charting the New York Times coverage of Brooklyn—the city’s most populous borough, with nearly as many residents as all of Chicago—from 1981 to the present. In 2012, it turns out, just 4.7 percent of Times articles contained the word “Brooklyn”—and that was up from 1.4 percent in 1981. The jump is not due to increased coverage of poverty in Brownsville. It’s driven by a staggering influx of money into a few Brooklyn neighborhoods. The Times found Brooklyn once Timespeople started moving there.

on Sorkin

Until a decade or so ago, the Times had flattered and entertained its audience with generous coverage of culture, arts, food, real estate, and travel (rich people interests) but had essentially abandoned the world of finance to its (formerly) downtown competitor, the Wall Street Journal. This is the opportunity Sorkin saw when he first pitched DealBook back in 2001, and it’s worked phenomenally well for him and the paper.

There is a slight tension, though, between the (ideal) rich, liberal Times reader and the Wall Street titan who religiously refreshes DealBook. The Times reader, while rich, is more likely to accept the notion that Wall Street is corrupt, destructive, and far too powerful. But finance professionals could not function without the delusion that their jobs are beneficial, indeed essential, to society as a whole.

in closing . . .

The modern finance industry is at a loss when it comes to justifying its own existence. Its finest minds can’t explain why we wouldn’t be better off with a much simpler and more heavily circumscribed model of capital formation.

Our subprime lenders proved, in the final analysis, too big too fail; and now, certain of our name-brand financial writers are too big to practice journalism.

best line

. . . he is Wall Street’s most valuable flack. He isn’t explainingfinance to the people—you’d be better served reading John Kenneth Galbraith to understand how finance works—he’s justifying it.

[lektrode]

Re: Financial Reporting - worse than you thought

as per usual, mr don = excellent editing.

[don]

Re: Financial Reporting - worse than you thought

thanks, lek