A Light Bulb Goes On at The New York Times

I’m usually the last one to bag on the media.  As a former newspaper editor, I think the media often are unfairly maligned. Journalists should do a better job sticking up for themselves and the important watchdog role they play in society.

That said, there are times when journalists don’t question things that they should.  An example is this housing mess.  When home prices were going crazy and everyone was making money, media stories focused mainly on the prosperity angle.  If anyone was questioning the underpinnings of the unprecedented run-up, we didn’t hear about it. (Homeowning journalists were probably just as excited as everyone else about record appreciation.) If they had exposed the rampant subprime lending, might the crisis have been mitigated?  Hindsight is 20/20.  We’ll never know.

But now, the media has an opportunity to redeem themselves with the fallout story.  For months, we’ve been treated to sob stories about people who are losing their homes. For the most part, journalists have not been scratching below the surface and learning, for example, the backstory on folks losing their homes.  Such as: They put no money down; they spent their home equity on vacations and cars; they exaggerated their income; they were drowning in credit-card debt; they were only in it to make a quick buck anyway.  “People losing their homes” is a sexy headline; why go deeper than that?

Last week I blogged about a New York Times story that reported that Bank of America was proposing that the U.S. government assume responsibility for bad mortgages.  The story included a sympathetic portrayal of a Memphis lawyer and his wife who lost money on their last home and were struggling to make ends meet on a $250,000 annual income.  I wonder if The Times editors were surprised at the 423 comments the story received, almost all from people outraged that the government would consider bailing out people they considered irresponsible and self-indulgent.

Well, just a few days later, this story appeared in the New York Times, with the headline Foreclosure Aid Rising Locally, Along with Dissent:

As the Bush administration and Congress consider proposals to ease the home foreclosure crisis, local governments across the country have been lending money to imperiled homeowners and confronting some opposition.  Some of these municipal and state efforts have met resistance from people who consider the assistance undeserved and adamantly oppose anything that resembles a taxpayer bailout.

Truth be told, it wasn’t like The Times discovered this angle on its own.  Consumers got upset about the prospect of a bailout, and The Times pursued that story.  Let’s hope journalists learn from this and do a little digging, instead of relying on the quick, easy sound bite.

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