While Maria Bartiromo was watching the Dow go up and down, and Fox Business recapped the market while throwing back a few pints, the News Corp.-ownedWall Street Journal figured out what to do with its CNBC relationship, and Portfolio watched as staffers fled and gossip radiated, where was everyone calling out financial institutions on their risky lending practices? MediaChannel.org’s Danny Schechter would certainly like to know.

Just as the mainstream press is quick to blame things like America’s boredom for its plummeting Iraq coverage, they’ve also tucked away coverage that you’re going to lose your home into the “not widely read business sections that focus on the ups and downs of the markets and the way the collapse of these arrangements have affected the fortunes of CEOS and business enterprises, not citizens, consumers and most of all homeowners.”

And they were only too happy to do so: Many media outlets prospered financially from ignoring the coming crisis.

There is more to this very sad failure. Many newspapers and TV outlets were complicit. They accepted and made tons of money carrying slick and often deceptive advertising for shady mortgage lenders and credit card companies encouraging readers and viewers to accept more debt. Some major newspaper are tied into local real estate syndicates and get kickbacks from sales tied to their extensive advertising of homes for sale.

Was there a conflict of interest perceived in taking these ads—which were important sources of revenue in a soft ad market—and producing watchdog journalism warning of the dangers of buying into subprime loans and other injurious products?

Is the press too imbued to our government’s mission of inspiring consumer confidence? Is that, in turn, connected to using the news pages to benefit advertisers? Think of all those local TV reports “live at the mall” at Christmas time cheerleading for more shopping? At the time, it appeared as if everyone was buying everything. It was only later, well after the fact, that we learned that it was the worst Christmas season in five years. [E&P]