Bloomberg and the Fed Battle Over Bank Info

The Biggest Bank in the U.S.

Bloomberg, the respected New York reporting site, is in a court struggle with the Federal Reserve over details of the 2008 bailout program. Bloomberg’s parent company has been fighting for more than two years to get full disclosure of the banks and corporations that would have failed were it not for the trillion-dollar financial program.

So far, the judges have been siding with the journalists. A lower New York court agreed with Bloomberg’s argument that the public has a right to know about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of taxpayer funds. For its part, the Fed is claiming that the disclosure of the particular companies could negatively impact their financial well-being and result in a run on the banks in question. The U.S. Court of Appeals will decide in the coming months which side to support.

I, of course, agree with Bloomberg on this one. While I understand that reporters can be a little bit of a nuisance and personally there are some things I could not care less about knowing, this is not just any matter. The money used to prop up these corporations, some of which were directly responsible for millions losing their jobs and homes, was borrowed from the victims themselves. To now claim that the people who came to the rescue of these companies cannot know who got their money is beyond audacious.

I wasn’t born yet during Watergate, so I missed out on that battle for journalists’ rights. This one, though, I’ll be staying tuned for.

Posted by on January 11, 2010. Filed under National News,News and Opinions with Selena Robinson,Opinion Editorial,US Business News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.