Sunday, October 07, 2001

Remora

Gretchen Morgenstern, how do I love thee?

In the nineties, I used to read Tom Byron's articles in the New York Observer as my guide to what was going on in the world of Money. He was wry, he was sardonic, he was on top of bullshit, he was having a great time, as the bubble inflated, pecking away at some of the peculiar intellectual corruption that creeps into eras of enthusiasm.

Let me count the ways...

And then, for a while, I was writing for Ken Kurson's Green magazine on business. Reviewing books that were, broadly, business oriented. So I immersed myself in business journalism, and I discovered -- not shockingly -- that business journalism is mostly bad. On a daily basis, the most erroneous news and views can be found on your local business section. The reaason is simple. Whereas reporters covering politicians are allowed to have a healthy dislike for politicians, no such critical distance is allowed between biz reporters and your neighborhood confidence men. So biz reporting becomes mainly rolling out the conventional wisdom.

I love thee to the heights, and depths...

Looking around for models, I was struck by the much higher quality of British reporting and reporters. My favorite book during this time was Devil Take The Hindmost, by Edward Chancellor, the Financial Times journalist -- still a scorching look at the Efficient Markets Theory which is behind most legislation on banking and investment. I also fell in love with Frozen Desire, John Buchan's extended meditation on money. Unfortunately, as a columnist and reporter, Buchan isn't as good. I know -- several biz books I reviewed, he also reviewed. And my reviews were deeper. It isn't that I'm an egotist -- actually, I found that surprising. Buchan knows a lot more than me about how markets work. He is just not willing to go all out on an occasional piece.

.... and breadths my soul can reach....

Now, the reporter to read, oh, not just read, to fall head over heels for, is Gretchen Morgenstern. She is the NYT's shining star -- although I wonder how many people have noticed that? She's been consistently on the money for the past two years. Her Sunday pieces are so fine, so fine -- the bleak vision in the background, but never too bleak, never black on black, the contrarian mistake of such as James Grant, and, surpremely, with the consciousness, the full knowledge, of who she is quoting in the foreground. Most biz reporting goes wrong by going to all the usual suspects -- quoting the hot guru or the available analyst of the moment. And these people have an agenda, mes freres. With Gretchen, you know that she knows. She is so SMART.

Another thing -- biz reporters are encouraged to be lazy -- the positive spin has no downside, I guess that's the management idea. So they often put together information like a committee of the blind weaving a quilt --patches go in no particular pattern. But oh my brothers and sisters, read today's column by G.M. and watch how beautifully she does numbers. Numbers are the bane and wonder of biz reporting. If you don't know how to put them together, it is like listening toa child play chopsticks -- a painful experience. But G.M, the beauteous G.M., knows that the numbers aren't bullshit -- a too hasty nominalistic view. Rather, you have to know something about your categories, and your context, before the numbers start to sing. Some people simply figure that out. God bless the old crook, it was Michael Milken's genius, in the seventies, to figure out the numbers on high risk bonds. He was right, although this doesn't mean he didn't abuse his power, and that he got off easy for what he did to the economy.

So, this is my song of love -- which shows those skeptics out there that I do have a heart. And Gretchen rules it.
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