How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

http://www.counterpunch.org/fingleton04232009.html

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How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years
By EAMONN FINGLETON

An old maxim has it that newspaper editors separate the wheat from the chaff, then print the chaff. By this standard, the editors of the Wall Street Journal showed special deftness in their handling of the Madoff affair.

They used the occasion of whistleblower Harry Markopolos’ testimony in Washington in February to address seemingly every minuscule detail of the scam. They even published an irrelevant, if lovingly crafted, floor plan of the Madoff firm’s office in the Midtown Manhattan Lipstick building. Yet, in all their apparent desire to “flood the zone” (maybe they were angling for a Pulitzer!), one detail was missing. Not a word of explanation was offered about the curious role played by the Journal’s own Washington-based investi­gative reporter John R. Wilke.

As Markopolos’ written testimony made clear, Wilke long ago knew the score. As far back as 2005, he had been entrusted with Markopolos’ now famous dossier raising no less than 29 red flags about Madoff. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, on the strength of an afternoon’s research, a good reporter could have worked up any one of Markopolos’ points into a cracker of a front-page story. Taken as a whole, the dossier represented the biggest “career development opportunity” any journalist has been handed since Deep Throat delivered the goods on Richard Nixon to Woodward and Bernstein a generation ago.

There are differing accounts of what happened next. According to Markopolos, Wilke was hot to trot but needed the blessing of higher-ups. And, unfortunately, the Journal’s “news” operation is apparently run much like an Amtrak marshaling yard. As months turned into years, Markopolos’ 29 red flags festered like so many rotten tomatoes in some desk jockey’s in-tray. Other sources, however, place the blame firmly on Wilke’s shoulders. Apparently, he started to dig but lost heart because there was so little publicly available information on Madoff’s modus operandi.

It is all very puzzling. The question, of course, is why would Markopolos lie about something like this? And then there is the simple fact that his testimony on other, more weighty matters has already been resoundingly vindicated.

it's baffles me as to why they get so much cred around here.

Even though these press organs have NEVER been fully honest or honorable in their previous reporting, the last ten or fifteen years has revealed them to be merely propaganda platforms for a variety of players. Granted, there are honorable folks that work at these places, but the plain fact is that they have lied, distracted, covered-up and buried news at the behest of a powerful group of monied and political interests.

They fool less people everyday.

Another interesting point: An official with the SEC was very impressed with Markopolos's list of "red flags" about Madoff's operation. The trouble was that the SEC official was in the Boston office and didn't have jurisdiction. He urged Markopolos to keep plugging away at trying to get the New York office interested, but Markopolos never succeeded at that.