The Blood Sport of Picking Off CEOs

How journalism devolved into a game of trashing easy targets with minimum effort and maximum noise.

It won’t matter who wins the election or where the Dow goes next, because for the foreseeable future, capitalism will find itself in Salem Village circa 1692. In the wake of the collapse of the U.S. financial system, there will be no downside to suing, investigating, indicting, ridiculing, fining, hauling before Congress, or tossing flaming bags of dog poop at corporate America.

The PR staple of “educating reporters” will be revisited when corporate chiefs acknowledge that in times of public outrage, the much-maligned “mainstream media” don’t want information, they want to serve up the pre-cast narrative of the Three Vs: Villains (that would be you, corporate chiefs); Victims (the public that lost their homes and retirement funds); and Vindicators (state attorneys general, federal prosecutors, angry network TV interviewers).

In the age of the Quick Little Kill, the Bugle’s readers aren’t looking for a nuanced analysis; they are pre-selecting in anticipation of the red meat they’ve come to expect.

Investigative journalism, which requires intensive research (without immediate payoff) and some semblance of nuance, is on life-support. Nowadays, “reporting” is about the Quick Little Kill—taking down an un-cuddly target with minimal effort and maximum noise. Think last week’s (justified) news reports about AIG executives’ $400,000 post-bailout spa retreat.

If conventional media have taught us anything lately, it is that even the pretense of objectivity is dead and the capacity to conduct meaningful investigations (um, such as the end of American capitalism) beyond the Quick Little Kill is fatally compromised.

At a recent lunch with a prominent editor at one of the country’s most respected newspapers—we’ll call it The Daily Bugle—he commiserated that the average visit to the paper’s website lasted less than a minute. In other words, rather than leisurely reviewing the news, online readers, armed with a specific interest and bias, scan the Bugle’s home page, click on a precise entry, skim it, then bolt.

While business leaders under siege still yearn for exculpation in the pages of the prestigious Bugle, angling for a “hit” there won’t yield the dividends they desire. In the age of the Quick Little Kill, the Bugle’s readers aren’t looking for a nuanced analysis; they are pre-selecting in anticipation of the red meat they’ve come to expect from the Bugle.