The financial collapse a year ago was also, in my mind, a further sign of the bankruptcy of the traditional media. Even though the rising real estate and stock market bubble were obvious for a number of years, The New York Times rarely took on the greed in Wall Street, treating, particularly in the business pages, the leaders of the financial community as great oracles. In fact, people like Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin were treated as wise men, while other people who saw the impending disaster–I can think of Dean Baker in particular–were ignored as "leftists" who had an axe to grind.

    Well, Greenspan still gets treated like a wise man–witness his appearance on Sunday on “This Week With George Stephanopoulous"–even though he is one of the culprits in the collapse. Rubin is taking a lower profile, and gets quoted a lot less in the media. The New York Times–late to the game as usual (with the exception of a few people in the Sunday Business Section)–now gives us a lead, front-page story about the greed of the private equity world:

Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company — the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades — all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.

For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.

But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.

Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.

   Well, yeah. And I immediately thought–where were stories like that five years ago? It is such an obvious story to write now–and I’m glad it’s there–but it is the media’s version of "the horse out of the barn"…to the great detriment of the entire country.

   Seriously, if The New York Times disappeared, would anyone really notice?