People are suffering. The economy is bad. And businesses are out to get you. That’s the gist of most mainstream business news reporting.
A survey last year for the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News found that 62 percent of those surveyed thought American chief executive officers were either “not too ethical” or “not ethical at all.” It isn’t surprising. Americans are bombarded with anti-business news in print, online and on TV.
Journalists seem to forget that even they work for companies built by entrepreneurs. Certain reporters and anchors stand out in their antipathy toward business. A look at their tactics is instructive for news consumers who want the whole story.
1. BRIAN ROSS — ABC
Brian Ross’ reports are all about blaming businesses for awful things withoowner’s multiple homes, nice office and blond wife, and describing his status akin to a “coal baron.” An investigation later showed the mine disaster was caused by a lightning strike. He blamed a gun store for the tragic Virginia Tech shooting. He even blamed American gun stores for Mexican drug violence.
2. LOU DOBBS — CNN
Lou Dobbs, the ultimate populist anchor, talks nightly about the “War on the Middle Class.” His mantra blames businesses for hurting workers, while he features union leaders and calls for more government intervention.
3. CHRIS CUOMO — ABC
The “Good Morning America” co-host has called the stock market “legalized gambling where Wall Street tries to cash in on bets made on the right companies.” He slammed an insurance company on behalf of a litigious attorney general: “Mississippi’s attorney general suggests the real problem isn’t the worst hurricane season ever. He says it’s State Farm’s greed,” Cuomo said.
4. ANNE THOMPSON — NBC
Thompson, an award-winning financial reporter, put in some time covering unions and attacking Big Oil. In one 2005 gas price story, she used comments from people on the street — one of whom said “We’re all getting cheated” — and closed by saying drivers wanted to “stop shelling out wads of money to feed the profits that tonight have America fuming.”
5. CHARLES GIBSON — ABC
Gibson reported on the U.S. housing market with a 2007 series titled “The Home Wreckers.” And who were the wreckers? Lenders. He accused them of “locking families out of the American dream by offering mortgages too good to be true.”
6. STEVEN PEARLSTEIN — The Washington Post
Pearlstein claimed in February 2008 that “the best thing that could happen to our economy is for a dozen high-profile hedge funds to collapse; for investment banking to enter a long, deep freeze; for a major bank to fail; and for the price of a typical Park Avenue duplex to fall by 30 percent.”
“For only then,” Pearlstein wrote, “might we finally stop genuflecting before the altar of unregulated financial markets and insist that Wall Street serve the interest of Main Street, rather than the other way around.”
7. CHRISTINE ROMANS — CNN
On “Your $$$$$” (formerly “In the Money”), “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and other CNN shows, Romans has offered opinionated statements about businesses and revealed her feelings.
On global warming, she declared “we’ve really come a long way on this debate,” as she could say “global warming” on TV without being “inundated” by “conservative oil-industry-tied groups.” In a segment about the student loan industry, she managed to smear another sector as well: “in this industry scandal, you see that these sound lut giving them a chance to answer the allegations. He blamed a coal mine owner for a fatal mine collapse, emphasizing the ike drug companies.”
8. ANTHONY MASON — CBS
Anchor Katie Couric called Anthony Mason the “grim reaper,” and it’s well-earned. He delivers reliably negative reporting on the economy and business. He’s taken jabs at oil executives being “called on the carpet” because of record-high gas prices. And he’s criticized executive pay and taken other one-sided hits at CEOs.
9. LOUIS UCHITELLE — The New York Times
According to Random House, whose Knopf Publishing Group printed his book, “The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,” Uchitelle “passionately argues that government must step in with policies that encourage companies to restrict layoffs and must generate jobs to supplement the present shortfall.” This is the reporter the Times puts on business and union labor stories.
10. GARDINER HARRIS — The New York Times
Harris spends a lot of his time criticizing prescription drug makers. He accused the pharmaceutical industry of spending “far more than it spends on research — trying to persuade doctors to prescribe its pills,” a claim the industry’s figures show false.
Amy Menefee is the former managing editor of the Business and Media Institute.
