I wonder if Citigroup, the big bank, thinks that Fox Business Channel is slavish in its coverage of the business world. While CNBC's Maria Bartiromo has been, shall we say, on a long lovely trip with Citi, FBC's Meredith Whitney has been an honest voice of ethical and independent journalism.
It's important to get this right, because the "meme" has gotten around that somehow Fox Business Channel is pro-business. It's a relative of the misapprehension that has dogged the Fox News Channel these last 11 years--that FNC is somehow pro-Republican.
In fact, FNC is merely fair & balanced, playing it down the middle, and compared to the MSM, that comes across to some as biased to the right. And the same holds true with FBC--Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, when they announced the new biz channel, said explicitly that they would not be anti-business, but also that they would not be pro-business. What they said was that FBC would be pro-market, pro-hard work, pro-entrepreneurship, and pro-upward mobility. That's a thoroughly admirable objective, in tune with the hopes of dreams of hundreds of millions in America, and billions around the world.
But at no time did FBC ever intend to be the mistress--oops, make that, the patsy--for anyone. And so we come to the difference between CNBC's Bartiromo and FBC's Whitney.
Bartiromo, as everyone knows, has had what might be called a love affair with Citigroup for a long time--an overly friendly interview with former Citi chairman and CEO Sandy Weill in 2003, and a great relationship with bounced Citigroup exec Todd Thomson that spilled into the news in 2007. But as we now know, Citibank has been falling off a cliff: after huge losses in the mortgage market, the stock is down by a third, and CEO who replaced Weill, Chuck Prince, is about to be pushed out the door.
Now we might ask: Which business channel got that story? Well, FBC had a big piece of it. But don't take my word for it: Here's the hot story in The Times of London on FBC's Whitney, which reports that Whitney braved past even death threats in her effort to share the truth as she saw it. And it looks as if she has been proven completely correct about Citi.
Here's some good stuff from The Times' Tom Bawden:
[Whitney] also downgraded her recommendation on Citigroup’s shares to “market underperform” in the note that set off America’s biggest stock market decline since August.
Ms Whitney, Forbes’s second-highest ranked stock picker for 2007, told The Times: “People are scared to be negative, especially when a company has such a wide holding. Clients are not pleased with my call and I have had several death threats.
“But it was the most straightforward call I’ve made in my career and I am surprised my peer analysts have been resistant. It’s so straightforward, it’s indisputable.”
In other words, she looked deep into the data, put her mouth where her clients' money was--and has been vindicated!
On the personal side, Whitney is an interesting character, but the main point, to business-news viewers, is that she is fearless and honest. That's what investors want, and that's what all news-minded viewers and clickers want.
