What was the response? Not much. Most responses came in the form of yada-yada-yada form letters as in "Thank You For Writing to the Today Show."- Responding to public concerns and suggestions are not high on the media agenda.
I then made the film IN DEBT WE TRUST: America Before The Bubble Busts to try to raise the visibility of the issue. The film was well reviewed but ignored by the New York Times. I personally sent copies and letters to leading op-ed writers and reporters. The result: nary a mention. I have been interviewed extensively in the alternative press but largely ignored by the mainstream.
That's not entirely true. CNN and MSNBC did carry positive articles including one which compared my documentary to "Carrie,"- a horror movie. They suggested mine was scarier. Tavis Smiley had me on; Larry King did not. Oprah has yet to return a call. (And AOL/truestories is now streaming the film.)
Why not on this issue?
Other media critics have been scathing about the dereliction of duty that is so obvious here. Dean Starkman in the Columbia Journalism Review was contemptuous:
"What's wrong? Why ask us? This kind of after-the-fact financial reporting I equate with a National Transportation Safety Board investigation""kicking through smoldering wreckage after the plane has already crashed. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this kind of reporting. It just feels a little late. Also, I always find it disingenuous to talk about napping watchdogs, as in the headline above, when the Journal and the rest of the business press themselves slept on the job and had to scramble to catch up to the corporate scandals earlier in the decade."-
Now the story is being covered but it is often the wrong story. The reporting tends to focus far more on panicky markets than victims of predatory lending. It seems like only a few critics like Jim Hightower are telling it like it is:
"At its core, this is a classically simple story of banker greed and outright sleaze. And the astonishing part is that nearly all of the rank injustice perpetrated by today's money changers is considered legal and is practiced by supposedly reputable financial firms."-
Some years back, a hamburger chain challenged its competitors with commercials asking, "where's the beef?"-
My questions today to media colleagues, including the progressive blogosphere, are where's the pick-up, where's the follow-up, where's the outrage?
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