Ted, but do you understand the mixture of suspicion and frustration that stories like that elicit?
I don't think for a minute that CNBC reporters are out there conspiring with the specialists, floor traders, and other "interested parties" to intentionally air bogus stories that will give cover for or act as catalysts for sudden price movements.
That would be delusional, not to mention unfair. And I don't think anyone is going that far.
But I also think it's delusional to ignore the simple fact that outlets like yours are preyed upon on a daily basis. You are. Whether it's running certain stories and killing others, there are people out there who attempt to prey upon you (i.e. outlets like CNBC) and if they're preying upon you, they're preying upon your viewers (i.e. people like me). Therefore the question of whether or not you have the editorial mechanisms in place to insure that you aren't pawns and persons who rely on your outlet for vital info aren't being loaded into the canon is fair game. If you want to PM me the name of the appropriate mgmt. person, I'd appreciate it. IMHO, you're a good guy for being on here and mixing it up and I don't want to vent my spleen on you, but let me just give you an example, somewhat germaine to the topic.
Several months ago, CNBC aired a report attributing a decline in the price of Micron Technology to (paraphrasing) "rumors that Samsung is considering entering the memory chip business".
If you didn't just cringe, you should have. Somehow your network was ran an explanation for a price decline that amounted to "the global memory chip leader is considering entering the memory chip business".
I post a lot to the MU thread, and I have to tell you that that is one of the thread's great running jokes.
So as a viewer, I'm concerned that your network lacked the internal knowledge retrieval mechanisms to prevent that garbage from airing.
And on the flipside - "interested parties" can kill stories.
Going back to MU, I find it fascinating that CNBC can occasionally run stories regarding items found in SEC filings that involve either a high level of "tea reading" into certain numerical line items or concern over certain statements in forward risk sections that arguably are slight variations on boilerplate and then in the case where a company reveals previously undisclosed information, in this case the fact that shipments in their main product area as measured in the industry's key metric actually fell 10% on a sequential basis (in contrast to a 10% sequential increase in "output", given on the company's earnings release PR and given in the absence of any reference to goods shipped) and a reclassification of certain revenue which lowered the revenue line for the company's main product segment would be ignored.
My guess would be that IF there were any "interested parties" asked to judge the importance/news value of this story, they most likely would have spun along the lines of:
1) It's old news.
Which it wasn't. Professional analysts were publishing research showing shipments rose on a sequential basis.
2) Overall revenue hasn't changed, so it's no big deal.
Overall rev. didn't change, but that particular revenue line was key as it represented a pivotal starting point for interpreting the nitty gritty of the prior quarter and a key building block for forward assumptions.
And yet, interestingly, the only outlet that did any independent reporting on the story was the New York Times in the person of Gretchen Morgenson. Bloomberg did a brief paraphrase and ZDNet managed to spin the story as the NYT accusing MU of "lying" (a serious misrepresentation).
Your sister outlet, Dow Jones, over the next several weeks gave more press coverage to the comments of Brian Finneberg (sp?) of CE Unterberg Towbin on MU (2 separate stories in which Finneberg spoke positively about MU) than they did on the 10-Q filing itself (no stories whatsoever). I'm not entirely certain, but I believe that both of those stories were stories written about on-air comments given while on CNBC. If that's the case, here you have a "print" outlet with ties to a broadcast outlet treating the general comments of an on-air guest on a sister outlet as more newsworthy than facts contained in an SEC filing.
I bring up MU, because obviously I follow it closely and IMHO these examples are germaine to the original issue; however, I have a feeling that this happens in other stocks.
There's no other branch of journalism where getting the story right is so critical, and yet, in mays ways, there is no other branch of journalism subject to as much dependence upon sources given the sheer volume of events, the nature of the events themselves, and the time-constraints and competitive pressures reporters and editors face.
Best Regards,
Tom |
