Picture this: Citigroup's Vikram Pandit (or Bank of America's Ken Lewis or Wells Fargo's John Stumpf) decides that the question-and-answer session at his annual meeting will be handled differently this year. Instead of fielding an uninterrupted stream of potentially wacky queries from a vast shareholder audience, Pandit (or Lewis or Stumpf) will handpick three journalists to sort through questions for him. These journalists will share the stage with the CEO and will each ask questions gleaned from thousands e-mailed directly to them.
Sounds fishy, doesn't it? After all, how exactly did Pandit pick this trio, anyway? What makes them so special? By agreeing to do this, isn't this trio, in a roundabout way, working for the CEO or his company? And why do they get to sit on the stage with him while every other member of the media has to wait for a press conference to lob his or her (single!) question?
Besides, if I'm a shareholder who's schlepped all the way to the annual meeting, shouldn't I be able to grill my CEO myself? You know, like Evelyn Davis?
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Well, this scenario isn't so far-fetched. It's already been
employed, not by Pandit or by any of his TARP-racked peers, but by none
other than Warren Buffett. And nobody seemed to mind in the least.
In fact, Buffett was widely applauded for tapping The New York
Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, CNBC's Becky Quick and Fortune's Carol
Loomis (sorry, Wall Street Journal) to filter questions for him at his
annual shareholder jamboree. By so doing, the argument went, Buffett
ensured that this year's love-in, er, meeting, had a "serious tone"
befitting the fact that shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. are
down 40% from their peak. With results like that and the economy in the
toilet, the reasoning went, we shouldn't waste a moment of the Oracle's
precious time with frivolous questions about Paris Hilton.
OK, true enough. Perhaps the presence of Sorkin, Loomis and Quick
ensured that this year's meeting was more high-minded than in the past
-- a little less Woodstock, a little more Davos. But their participation
is a reminder of how Buffett has an entirely different relationship
with the media than any other CEO; how Buffett is viewed more like a
statesman than a mere money-grubbing CEO. And how access to Buffett is
viewed very differently from access to other high officials.
Now this isn't the biggest issue since Jayson Blair. Buffett's
complex relationship with the press is nothing new, with the most
shop-worn example being his ties to Loomis, who helps edit his annual
reports, and her home (and arguably his), Fortune magazine, whose cover
he graced yet again a few weeks ago, touting an electric car made by a
Chinese company Berkshire invested in last year. (Never mind that it
was Buffett's sidekick, Charlie Munger, who discovered the company.
Fortune's cover screams, "Buffett's Electric Car.")
But it's always been tolerated, mostly because Loomis is an
excellent journalist and, more importantly, because Buffett is an
exceptional investor. With a track record like no other -- not to
mention a well-cultivated, folksy matter -- Buffett gets a pass in the
eyes of the media.
Put simply, Buffett is the greatest example we have, despite current
woes, of our continuing desire for financial gods. A recent "Frontline"
segment on PBS about Bernie Madoff brought home the power of that
craving. Madoff, of course, is the anti-Buffett: He avoided the press,
and he was about as transparent as a dirty window. But his customers
deeply believed in his financial powers and his ability to make money
for them. So even when they felt something was amiss -- feeder funds
could not use Madoff's name in prospectuses; a tiny accounting firm
audited his operation -- they stayed with him. After all, they reasoned,
Madoff knew how to beat the market. Who were they, mere mortals, to
question him or others who believed in him? His exceptionalism kept
naysayers at bay.
Buffett's exceptionalism, meanwhile, enables his unique relationship
with the media. At a time when the financial press is in the doghouse
for cozying up to CEOs and failing to see the economic disaster ahead,
Buffett remains above the fray. Indeed, rubbing elbows with him, or
broadcasting his every word, is a reporting coup, even as we deride
such "access journalism" elsewhere. Buffett is different, we say; he's
exceptional. For the media's sake, let's hope he stays that way.
Yvette Kantrow is executive editor of The Deal.
Comments
So no one from The Deal got invited to ask questions in Omaha?
Only half the questions came from the journalists, the rest from the audience, unfiltered. If all the questions had been filtered, then the thesis of your piece might have been more persuasive