How come no major media companies and their expert journalists saw this coming?

I get the best insights from blogs, I don't know about you. Some of the news reported in these blogs are snippets of 'the news', but the bulk is interpretations, insights and analysis. There is discussion, sharing of views. These bloggers don't get paid or procure advertising to purport a particular view. They're interested in 'actuality'.

I think it is worth remembering that $147 oil, the credit crisis and the current global financial crisis were reported and predicted way, way in advance of it actually happening on a number of sites (who have been accurate on other issues too). I think if you consider that media companies around the world were collectively caught by surprise you have to consider the same reasons the media supported the war in Iraq (which is, because everyone else was or was thought to be).

Blogging ain't perfect, but one thing it has (a minority of bloggers certainly) is self awareness. Critical thinking. Consciousness. The many of the people involved - myself included - are trying to convey the actual state of affairs, and we are not expecting a paycheque or to win popularity contests. What you find at blogs like theoildrum.com is intelligent, practical, altruism. And possibly the beginning of more intelligent and more functional, self-aware, communities.

clipped from www.fcnp.com To quote the Post, "The shaky house of financial cards that has come tumbling down was erected largely in public view: overextended investment banks, risky practices by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, exotic mortgage instruments that became part of a shadow banking system. But while these were conveyed in incremental stories -- and a few whistle-blowing columns -- the business press never conveyed a real sense of alarm until institutions began to collapse." In reading through the story I was struck by how eerily similar are the now admitted journalistic lapses and the failure to connect the dots in the financial story to what we have been witnessing in the media's coverage of peak oil. The heart of Kurtz's apologia is the troubling question "Why didn't they see this coming?"