The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Post finds banks bending over backwards; Media ride Willie Nelson’s (biodiesel) bandwagon; CNN anchor vows to throw himself in front of a bus.

Jan. 11, 2006

     The Washington Post reports on how stiff competition in the banking industry is improving customer convenience, while CNN and NBC hop on Willie Nelson’s alternative fuel bus but drive around biodiesel’s drawbacks. Meanwhile, CNN’s “In the Money” rams the banking industry full speed with bluster about “usurious” interest rates on credit cards.

The Good
     Competition is great for the consumer, especially in the banking industry. So reported the Washington Post in its January 9 edition in Terence O’Hara’s “Banks Bend Over Backwards for Business.” O’Hara found that “Free, no-minimum-balance checking, introduced three years ago, is now the norm, and banking experts who follow the Washington market closely say a variety of so-called nuisance fees – foreign ATM charges, overdraft fees and the like – will be the next to disappear.”

Surcharges on foreign ATMs have often been a populist issue for left-leaning groups critical of the market to justify calls for more banking regulation. By reporting that competition in the free market is leading inevitably to the death of this nuisance, O’Hara earns “The Good” award for this week.

The Bad
     With gasoline prices always on their minds, the media have been quick to go crazy over the promise of alternative fuels. The media literally jumped on the bandwagon for biodiesel, featuring country artist Willie Nelson’s tour bus, which is powered by the alternative fuel. Both CNN’s December 30 “American Morning” and NBC’s January 2 “Today” reported all the benefits but none of the drawbacks of the alternative fuel, such as how inefficient biodiesel is to produce. “In a study with Cornell University Professor David Pimentel, the researchers found that growing corn, soybeans or other plants and converting them into bio-fuels can use more energy than the bio-ethanol or bio-diesel generates,” reported the Oregonian’s Dee Anne Finkel in the December 21 paper.

The Ugly
     Any time a respected newsman, or in this case CNN’s Jack Cafferty, threatens to end it all over 16 percent interest rates, you know business reporting is getting ugly. That’s exactly what CNN’s “In the Money” served up for its lunchtime viewers on the January 7 program. “If any incumbents are re-elected in the year 2006, I'm going to go throw myself in front of a cross-town bus. What a disgrace,” harrumphed the perpetually dour journalist, disgusted by credit card rates just above the national average. Perhaps hoping to pull Cafferty out of the bus lane, Fortune magazine editor Andy Serwer called for a national cap on credit card interest rates, an idea readily accepted by “In the Money” guest Ed Mierzwinski, a member of the Ralph Nader-founded U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Not only were Mierzwinksi’s attacks on the banking industry endorsed and echoed by the “In the Money” crew, no opposing viewpoint was brought on later in the program to point out that credit card interest rates caps could lead to a credit crunch for American consumers.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly tracks the best and worst media coverage of business and economics. Readers are invited to submit suggestions or news tips to staff writer Ken Shepherd at kshepherd@mediaresearch.org.