What Kind of Stories Are the Media Failing to Cover?

Dan Froomkin of the Nieman Watchdog Project interviews William K. Black about the media’s underreporting of fraud cases. Black, a regulator and professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, outlined nine stories he thinks are currently being underreported. The majority of them concern fraud: mortgage fraud, consciously fraudulent lending practices, lack of prosecution, “echo” epidemics of fraud, and the “ongoing massive cover-up of losses on bad assets.” Black also laments the “continued absence of effective regulation,” writing that “It should be scandalous that Obama left in charge, or even promoted, the anti-regulators who permitted the Great Recession. The (failed) anti-regulator of Fannie and Freddie, for example, remains?FHFA’s acting director.” [%comments]