May 30, 2009

Columbia Journalism Review this month took the first steps toward transforming the ghost stories and urban legends of America's current recession into the formalized analysis of history. In "The List," a table of 727 stories from the business media, CJR tracks the history of the recession's coverage from its first rumbles and murmurs in 2000 to the cataclysms of 2007.

In the process, the publication explores whether the media did, in fact, do everything that it could to protect its readers.In its final analysis, the answer seems to be a resounding "no."Part of the problem has been a sort of institutionalized Stockholm syndrome. Much of the financial media have been all too easily swayed by the arguments of the very people and institutions they were supposed to watch. In some ways, this is completely understandable.