Journalism has had its share of troubles lately. Heck, I'd be willing to say that journalism is dead. Over the last couple of decades it seems that fewer and fewer of those who are supposed to "report" are willing to put their names at risk.
Mark Pittman was an activist of sorts at Bloomberg. My blog posts here and here talk about how he confronted the Fed. I didn't agree with the reasons, but I'm glad he had the cojones to ask for the info.
Mr. Pittman was instrumental in blowing the cover off of the subprime crisis and also (ex post) the ratings fiasco of 2001-2003 that doomed the reputations of Moody's and S&P. It is thanks to him that we even know about some of this stuff. He was a reporter, a real journalist in the traditional sense, and we owe him a lot.
Mark Pittman passed away a few days ago, and some of his exploits are detailed here. I hope you'll give it a look when you can.
I think "he was a great man" is used too much these days. We should save it for people like Mark Pittman.
My condolences go out to his wife, family and colleagues. I hope you can see that Mark's work made a difference in this world, and that's all anyone can ask for.
PS Mr. Pittman refers to a Mother Jones piece in his interview that might be of interest to readers. The print version is here.
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