I'm not a big fan of CNBC and other financial TV channels. They're great at covering live news and breaking stories, but they are not so good at covering the deeper issues. 

So CNBC was great at covering a 700-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average a few months ago, but was not very good at covering the drop from the broader context of the U.S. current account deficit and Chinese currency manipulation.



 




Instead of getting the best expert sources to address an issue and giving a reporter time to think about the issue he must cover, TV financial coverage focuses on putting the most outrageous and animated personalities on and it devolves into shouting matches.




Print reporters covering the same issues at great publications, like Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal will always do a better job because they have more time to think, they can choose from experts all over the world and not rely solely on sources that are close to a studio and who are colorful, and they can organize their thoughts better because they use the written word.












Keeping all this in mind, take a look at the results of a survey of investors being conducted now on CNBC. It shows that investors have lost faith in advisors. Should we dismiss the results?



 




Are the respondents to the survey just consumers of financial pornography who do not matter much to independent advisors?



 




Or are these CNBC-watchers fair representatives of the investing public who have relied on wirehouse brokers for advice and who justifiably have lost faith in their advisors?



 




Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment.