Danny Schechter - ColdType

CHAPTER 13
CO-CONSPIRATORS:
THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA
Most journalists failed to pick up the worldwide crunch
that was to shatter capitalism. Were they lazy, or embedded
with the bankers?
(Part of this chapter appeared in two European
journalism reviews)
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We were just entering the new millennium when I
joined a caravan of journalists and business leaders
on a mountain climbing trek, from the airport
in Zurich to the snowy peaks in Davos, Switzerland, for the
annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. It was hardly
taxing or dangerous. We went by limo. Even though I am an
independent journalist, I had wrangled an invitation as a guest
to a special media program for top editors, and was given full
credentials to mingle with the heavy hitters. I was not there as
a mere reporter, consigned to the working press room carved
out of a fallout shelter in the basement of the Conference Center,
but as a full-fledged attendee alongside editors of the Wall
Street Journal, Time, Newsweek and the Financial Times.
We were the chosen ones and allowed to “embed” ourselves
into the elite of the multinational corporate culture. The
affluence and the elitism were seductive and co-optative on
that mountaintop, with many media outlets glowing over a
new genre of masters of the universe – the “Davos Man.” One
of our number, a reporter for CNBC TV would soon “cross
the aisle” and leave reporting for a hedge fund (it later went
bust).
At the time, January 2000, the dot com bubble was unrav-