Not according to the Washington Post. While the paper had the opportunity to talk to many people who missed the crisis, including a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, its reporters could not find the time to talk to anyone who saw the crisis in coming for its article on the upcoming financial summit in Washington. One of the people interviewed expressed the concern that the meeting would result in too much regulation. No one cited in the article raised what would seem to be an obvious concern, the politicians at the summit are too closely tied to the financial industry to promote regulations that will rein in abuses. The Washington Post failed disastrously in its economic reporting over the last five years by almost completely excluding the voices of those who saw this financial crisis coming. As a result, Post readers would have been completely surprised by the crisis, unless they had access to better sources of economic information. Apparently, its editors have either learned nothing from this failure, or alternatively, they do not care.
--Dean Baker
