Why Does the Press Insist on Reporting What the Clueless Say?

The unnamed analysts of Wall Street have repeatedly proven beyond any doubt that they are completely clueless. Not a peep of forecast for the collapse of the economy that started in 2008, for example.

Yet every single article on the economy now includes the analysts' expectations in the first sentence or two. For example, the New York Times reported on 20 January 2012 that Google had announced record high earnings in the last quarter. But share prices dropped 9% because the earnings "failed to meet analysts' expectations." Why is the press glorifying (by quoting) people who are failures? Why is the financial press by implication telling investors to listen to and follow the advice of the "analysts?"

How about simply reporting the numbers: profit up or down, whatever, with some context: new unemployment down (or up) from the last reporting period.

Not reporting analysts should include not reporting most corporate forecasts. After all, those are just made by insider analysts - such as the ones at Lehman Brothers who drove them off a cliff.

But perhaps the problem is really that the news media no longer have their own financial people, so they just have to parrot the press releases they get.

last update 20 January 2012

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