‘Big Short’ Author Says Wall Street Journal Has Fingerprints

Michael Lewis on Bloomberg

The Big Short and The Blind Side author Michael Lewis has been skewering the financial industry since his first book, Liar’s Poker (1989). But a recent interview with The Spectator shows Lewis also believes the press is complicit in Wall Street’s hegemony. Not just any press either, but the bible of the street, The Wall Street Journal. Lewis said, “the news side of the paper has the fingerprints of the finance industry all over it.”

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Lewis’ great gift as a writer is his ability to make complex stories and subjects easily understandable. His books about high speed trading (Flash Boys) and lead-up to the financial crisis (The Big Short) are proof. But beyond his singular skill at interpreting complicated issues, the books are made by Lewis’ reporter’s drive — his unrelenting digs to find the deepest mines in each story. It’s this type of reporting that Lewis implies the Wall Street Journal no longer practices — either out of fear of reprisals from the powerful entities in covers, or just in tacit collaboration with those entities. “We are underserved by critical, knowledgeable financial journalists,” Lewis told The Spectator.

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