Is MartketWatch the CNBC of the Online World?

Just a couple of months ago, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show made numerous headlines when he ran a spoof of the terrible financial journalism displayed by major financial network CNBC. In his spoof, basically Mr. Stewart pointed out prediction after prediction after prediction by CNBC financial experts and global financial executives that carried not a shred of truth and amounted to financial cheerleading for Wall Street and the financial industry rather than hard-hitting, informative journalism.

Lately, I’ve been noticing the same pattern at MarketWatch online. At this website, the readers seem to be more knowledgeable that the journalists that contribute to the website. MarketWatch displays blatant cheerleading time and time again, spinning S&P futures markets that may be up only 2 or 3 points in the US as public advertisements for the continuation of US market rallies during pre-market hours. Furthermore, I have noticed a very slanted pattern as of late, whereby, if European markets are barely up while Asian markets are markedly down, MarketWatch’s headlines will almost always comment on continuing global rallies in Europe, even if the markets are less than 0.5% positive on the day and most Asian markets are all down 1.0% or more. When this is the case, the headline focus will entirely be on European markets as if the Asian markets do not exist. If, during the next day, Asian markets rally, and European markets are heavily down, then MarketWatch’s headlines will laud strong rallies in Asia while usually disregarding plunging European markets as if they do not exist. I have witnessed this pattern at least seven or eight separate occasions just within the past couple of weeks – Ignore the negative news and spin marginally positive news into significantly positive news.

Furthermore, if Asian and European markets are BOTH significantly down for the day, as is the case today, then they will choose headlines such as “Spending Talk Hits Europe” while never mentioning that London markets are down 1.78%, Paris markets down 1.78%, Frankfurt markets down more than 2.0%, Tokyo markets nearly down 1.0% and Hong Kong markets down more than 2.0% (as they were at the time I wrote this article today). No wonder the average investor has no idea what is happening with today’s global monetary crisis when the most prominent and heavily visited financial television networks and online websites spin every single piece of negative news as positive news, act like they are paid cheerleaders for investment and banking interests with no accountability to their audiences, and frequently bury negative news altogether. I’ll soon write more on the slop that passes as financial journalism today as the mass media, to this day, continues to massively fail in reporting truth, as well as to massively fail in reporting the most important and significant breaking news stories in the financial world today.

To be fair, I have read some articles on MarketWatch, in which a few of their journalists attempt to root out the truth. However, their headlines, which have the most impact of any item on their website, have an overwhelming slant towards a “cheerleader” stance for the investment and banking industry, and quite frankly, in my opinion, take huge liberties with distorting reality in favor of promoting one stance only instead of a balanced outlook.

In the end, not only are all of our financial systems broken and corrupted from the executive level and political level all the way down to the regulatory level, but they are also massively broken at the journalistic level as well.