What Does the Media Do?

Frederick J. Sheehan is the author of Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession (McGraw-Hill, 2009), which was translated and republished in Chinese (2014). He is researching a book about Ben Bernanke. He writes a blog at www.AuContrarian.com.

What do reporters do all day? In "Exclusive!" "Shocking!" "Extra, Read All About It!" breaking news, AuContrarian.com  published the damning testimony of (in 2008 - in all cases) Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, and New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner in "Sell Financial Stocks - and Bonds" (September 5, 2014). Quoting from their own words, from the "The Plaintiff's Corrected Proposed Finding of Fact," in Starr International Co. v. United States,the trio broke the law when they nationalized AIG, and, showed they had no idea what they were doing.             Now, those conclusions are opinion. And as stated in "Sell Financial Stocks - and Bonds" the evidence is the "Plaintiff's case, of course, and protests will be aired on the witness stand starting in late September." (The upcoming trial is discussed in the article.)             The question of the day is: why hasn't a media organization written about this? A search through Google, etc. came up with nothing. That is not definitive, but if one media outlet gets hold of an important story, the others follow.             The Wall Street Journal published a story on August 26, 2014, which made it plain the "The Plaintiff's Corrected Proposed Finding of Fact" was in the public domain. From the story: Mr. Bernanke is quoted making the statement in a document filed on August 22 with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims as part of a lawsuit linked to the 2008 government bailout of insurance giant AIG."             The Bernanke quote was his standard: "I stopped the worst financial crisis since [fill in the blank]." He has lived off this assertion since 2009, never providing evidence. Bernanke's quotes are from - you may have guessed - page one of the document.             Why didn't anyone read through the 99 pages? Page one was the least newsworthy of all. Why didn't other media outlets display even a modicum of their self-acclaimed "investigative journalism" and call court? Will they cover the trial? Starr International Co. v. United States is set to start September 29.