Asleep at the wheel?

Were business reporters asleep at the switch when it came to covering the financial industry over the last few years? NewsHour posted video late this afternoon of a forum held by the business press a few months ago in Denver.

Larry Ingrassia of The New York Times said maybe the readers were asleep, “but the New York Times definitely wasn’t.” But most of the people in the video appeared to disagree.

In an assessment of the panel in a Colorado Independent story last month veteran TV journalist Allan Dodds Frank blamed an old reportorial whipping boy: editors.

“Fannie and Freddie were not covered on TV because there’s no visual,” he said.