I started a home-based one-person investor relations firm in 1991, just as cable investment/financial news was starting to be identified as a viable commercial market.  I worked at home until about 1997.  I do not remember when I started throwing objects at the TV when watching CNBC but it was between those years.  At the time, I dealt with institutional investors and stock analysts.  Most were honest and hardworking and some weren’t.  But each defined “honesty” in a way that is different than the rest of the world.  I believe they thought “honest” related to what they were truly thinking at the moment they were actually muttering the words, not what they thought was real and true beyond that.

Here’s the example.  Whenever the market started going down, institutional investors and analysts would line-up to be interviewed by CNBC to reiterate the same thing:  “Investors should think of the long term; they always come out well over time; do not panic; do not sell.”  That’s the line that initiated the throwing-objects-at-the-TV action because those were the very same people who were doing the selling!

If the market is going down, it’s likely the full-time pros that are doing the selling.  The institutional investor and analyst who are concerned about the long term are rare because that is not how they are usually remunerated.  They live and die on quarterly results.  They buy and sell in a herd.  They tell people to stay in a stock so they can get out.

People are concerned about the integrity of CNBC in its coverage of the economic meltdown?  Give me a break!  There is nothing new about CNBC’s bias – they always tilt in the direction of the full-time professional in the investment community – those are the people who comprise virtually the entirety of their guest list and those are the people they try to get to be the “experts” they interview to give advice to the viewer who is simply seeking to get a bias-free understanding of what’s going on.  But as to the “honesty” of the pros being interviewed: yes, they are being honest and sincere when they are saying what they are saying because they are saying it for the schmucks that are outside their profession, and they honestly believe those schmucks should follow their advice, even though they don’t act on the same advice they dish out.  That’s how the investment community has defined “honesty” — and they know it!

The cure for CNBC: Simple.  It’s a blog!  The people who are on the show are bloggers!  This isn’t journalism.  Don’t expect it.  Expect bloggers – unregulated, unedited, and without a code and legacy of standards to drive them – quite different from those people who used to be called “journalists.”