Within the past year it appears that journalists and their stories have come under greater scrutiny. Journalistic integrity has been called into question as a few bad apples have decided to stretch the truth (or in some cases make it up entirely.) Our relationship with the financial media has been relatively positive as can be seen within our media accolades area. But we have encountered some resistance to change and some conflicts of interest that may not be well known to the general public.

Not too long ago we asked a business editor of the Associated Press (Darryl Christian, dchristian@ap.org) why the Associated Press would continue to publish information and 'direction' from firms, analysts, and experts when they had a track record of deliberately misleading investors. (We also noted that a number of recent investor surveys indicated that individual investors gave little to no weight to analyst's recommendations.) His answer: "If the bunk moves markets, then we'll publish the bunk". So these upstanding journalists don't care about right or wrong, good or bad - as long as the bunk can (supposedly) move a market, it's worth printing?

We also emailed a well-known reporter with CNBC (David Faber, david.faber@nbc.com ) and asked similar questions. His response was simply "grow up…and lose my email address". We are not sure why he responded this way, as it does seem to be a reasonable and legitimate question. More recently we heard Joe Kernen, another CNBC reporter, make a statement that "CEO's don't even know where their company is headed so how can analysts?". (This segment was of course followed up with an 'ask the analyst' segment (and on that day it was an analyst from U.S. Bancorp's Piper Jaffray - a firm recently highlighted by CNBC for 'receiving or undisclosing payments for research' and being fined). We also emailed Mr. Kernen (joe.kernen@nbc.com) and have yet to hear back. Maybe you'll have better luck getting answers from them, or maybe they just ignore the 'insignificant' individual investor. Either way they are leading you down their path of choice, the wrong path, a path that has led to great monetary losses. (Check out the CNBC website message boards - great postings from investors who are ignored daily and keep a running commentary of the hypocrisy and hype - they refer to CNBC as 'CNBS' with good reason).

But how much is the media in bed with the Wall Street, and how much of it is just plain 'that's the way it's always been done' mentality?

Conflict of Interest
Reuters recently took journalistic integrity and conflict of interest to a new low. Reuters had an initial investment in a market research firm called Multex. They recently purchased Multex. It had been reported that Multex was failing and required a rescue. Multex competed directly with Thomson/First Call. Both First Call and Multex collect earnings estimates from analysts and publish an earnings consensus estimate. For the most part their estimates are identical so we're not sure what the value of the service is (if one assumes there is any value in analyst research). In any event, Multex is now called Reuters Research. And herein lies the conflict of interest. Reuters by definition is a business news and information agency. They are in essence 'media'. And now they are in bed with Multex, a provider of analyst research information.

So we ask what incentive does Reuters News now have to provide the best possible data (let alone impartial) for all investors vs. the Reuters Research data?   None.

The references to Reuters Research in Reuter's financial news stories now out number references to all other earnings data research providers (now direct competitors) 100 to 1. Prior to the purchase of Multex by Reuters, references to Multex were 1 to 100 versus all other earnings data research providers. Something has clearly changed. We wrote to the business editors of Reuters (editors@reuters.com, and Martin Howell, martin.howell@reuters.com) asking if they believed this to be a conflict of interest, and guess what?   No response. We'd love to see the internal corporate memos to the thousands of Reuter's reporters that suggested (or demanded) this change. If they were smart they just 'put out the word'.

We also wrote (twice) to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, self-proclaimed defender of the Mom and Pop investor, in regard to the Reuters conflict of interest situation, and guess what? No response. Do you think Reuters News will question the integrity of Reuters Research data in these situations? It's a serious conflict of interest when a news reporter asks himself: "Can I write negatively about this and not suffer any consequences?"

Have You Been Asked For Comment Recently?
Journalists also like to use the word 'investor' as if it is an all-encompassing term (meaning both institutional and individual alike). The problem is they never speak with individual investors and rarely utilize data collected from individual investors (whether it be quantifiable or just general) to formulate story direction or facts. The majority of information they use comes directly from the purveyors of 'bunk' (aka analysts). So don't be misled to think that when you read a financial news story that your opinion, expectation, or outlook is included - it's not.

Believing everything you read or hear would (obviously) not be smart, and none of us are looking to be ignorant investors. Do yourself a favor and email the business editors and journalists of Reuters, AP, CNBC, Dow Jones, etc. and ask simple questions like:

- Do you believe there is a conflict of interest with Reuters News and Reuters Research?
- What do you mean by the word investors?
- Why do you publish and report on information so heavily concentrated from analysts that have been proven themselves deliberately deceptive to investors?
- Where do you obtain individual investor data from?
- Also ask why they haven't explored better alternatives to meet your needs (heck, just a half year ago the Wall Street Journal asked how much weight investors give to analysts recommendations and outlook, and with the majority responding 'very little' you would think they would have explored other avenues or at least stopped referencing the data. But to this day, no change.)

Also, don't hesitate to question un-sourced data in news articles that has the appearance of being one sided. Send the author or editor an email asking for the data source. You can learn a great deal about a news site (or any website) when they only provide automated answers or no answer at all. (Think about it - if they don't care about responding to emails, they certainly don't care about you.)

Some primary contact information you may find helpful: CNBC: Any reporter can be emailed in the following format: firstname.lastname@nbc.com (eg: joe.kernen@nbc.com, david.faber@nbc.com) Specific programs can be emailed at the following: Squawk@CNBC.com MorningCall@CNBC.com PowerLunch@CNBC.com Reuters: editors@reuters.com Martin Howell, Editor, martin.howell@reuters.com CEO Tom Glocer, tom.glocer@reuters.com SVP, Corp Communications, Nancy Bobrowitz, nancy.bobrowitz@reuters.com Associated Press: Darryl Christian, Editor, dchristian@ap.org

You shouldn't be surprised when you don't get an answer. Worse yet, if you do get a response, we guarantee the spin put on the answer will be nothing short of meaningless banter that avoids the real issue. (We base this on our personal experience.) If you come across something different, we would appreciate hearing from you describing your experiences. Feel free to forward it to us at info@whispernumber.com.

You can't rely on insiders and politicians to help protect you from atrocities that are now a common occurrence on Wall Street. These events are orchestrated and the people being hurt the most are individual investors. The Wall Street 'administration' hasn't changed, the SEC has yet to protect or reimburse you, and the media tows the party line.

You can, however, make sure your voice is heard. Don't hesitate to send an email, a letter, or even make a phone call. The education you can gain with these simple acts will pay off in the long run. And sitting on your hands and doing nothing? Well, we'd have to say you get what you deserve.