Eric Boehlert: The campaign-obsessed press never saw Wall Street's calamity coming

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The campaign-obsessed press never saw Wall Street's calamity coming

by Eric Boehlert


On Monday afternoon, September 15, my new issue of Newsweek arrived in the mail just as the fear on Wall Street began to morph into unbridled panic. By then, investment powerhouses Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch had been wiped out, while insurance giant AIG teetered on the brink.

Flipping open Newsweek, I knew the magazine had gone to print over the weekend and wouldn't have the most up-to-date information on the financial calamity that erupted Sunday and spilled over into Monday. But I was curious about what kind of financial coverage the magazine offered up since, during the previous news week cycle, the government had stepped in and made the unprecedented move of bailing out troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was no secret, as Newsweek editors put their latest issue to bed, that the credit and mortgage crisis was gaining strength and that there was something seriously wrong with America's financial markets. Yet as I looked through that entire issue of Newsweek, I found only one page dedicated to financial news.

Just one page.

Curious, I counted how many Newsweek pages in that same edition were set aside for campaign-related coverage.

Answer: 16.

The arrival of Black September on Wall Street focused an unwanted spotlight on the cracks in the United States economy, not to mention free market capitalism. In terms of journalism, Black September also highlighted deep deficiencies. Namely, how the mainstream media went AWOL for much of 2008 in covering the U.S. economy and the state of the financial markets.

Blinded by its obsession with the presidential campaign (an obsession that has too often revolved around tactics and trivia), the press this summer all but ignored the unfolding financial story at a time when the public announced, week after week, that it was starved for more economic reporting and that the economy was, without question and perhaps without precedent, the single most pressing issue for the presidential campaign.

But that didn't matter. Because prior to September 15, the press couldn't be bothered. The press had its Story of the Year, thank you very much, and it wasn't going to budge off it, not even a little.

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