Press As Patriot

Jamieson asserts that “in the patriot role, the impulse to challenge the actions of those who lead and probe their motives wanes” (197). I see evidence of this idea in practice with the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger. There is evidence that the federal government strong- armed the company into completing the merger despite the $15 billion in debt that would come with it. This pressure from above is reportedly what prompted CEO Lewis to withhold information about the losses until after the shareholder vote had approved the deal.
When shareholders learned that they had been deceived, they were outraged, and the media quickly picked up the story. The S.E.C. launched an investigation as did New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The media backlash was so bad that CEO Lewis announced he would resign in December 2009. He was definitely wrong in failing to inform shareholders about the losses, but the federal government was wrong too. Where were the stories in the press about Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chair Bernanke’s ultimatum to Lewis? Why is that not a subject of greater investigation? Why was Bank of America criticized for accepting a federal bailout when it was part of a shady deal the government drew up?
Acting as patriot was easy for the press in this scenario. The public was already against big business after the details of the AIG case were revealed. If AIG was corrupt, then Bank of America must be too, right? Plus the country was in the midst of an economic crisis. It needed to believe the government was trying to make things better, not contribute to the problem. It was more patriotic to report that Bank of America had “manipulated” the federal government into receiving a bailout for a bad decision than to believe the government had bullied the company into going through with the merger. In the spirit of fair, accurate, and unbiased reporting, however, there was more to the story that deserved to be told.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/the-final-days-of-merrill-lynch/7621/