The Maven: A Stern Rebuke

Editor's Note: Welcome to 'The Business Press Maven,' the alter ego of Marek Fuchs. With humor and a unique eye for the interplay between Wall Street and the press, The Business Press Maven's column seeks to help investors make money (or avoid losing it) by better understanding what they read, hear and watch.

Covering Howard Stern's move to satellite radio allowed reporters to drop colorful references to amputee beauty pageants, drunk dwarfs and spankings. But The Business Press Maven sits with his head in his hands and a big qualm: How is an investor supposed to make one thin dime from the way one of the most widely reported business stories of the year was covered?

In all that reporting, the future did not take shape -- which is remarkable. After all, satellite radio is going to be either HBO or ham radio. In other words, a lot of money will be either made or lost. But those reporting on Stern's move kept both feet planted firmly in the air. Dutifully, they split the difference -- obscuring the truth.

Inevitably, the stories first open with an anecdote -- making reference to a drunk dwarf or some such. Then, it's off to on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand land.

Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) has the challenge of cost structure (it gave $500 million to a man whose alter ego is "Fart Man"). But terrestrial radio is lame and losing listeners in droves. Satellite radio might be no better, especially since its hairy hope, Howard, will now be operating with what might prove to be a less interesting amount of freedom. Then again: terrestrial radio, as a Denver Post media columnist noted a touch breathlessly, has high-definition technology coming (as if anyone listens to radio for its pitch-perfect sound).

After going on in this vein, the reports invariably end with an anecdote from a Howard fan, most often drunk and standing in the freeze outside of his final terrestrial show. Some were planning to sign up for satellite. Yet some were not.

Such overly balanced coverage requires no frontal lobe thought and gives the issue an automatic equivalence: they both stand a chance and one will emerge successful.

Why?