Please, Tune Out the Hogwash

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Having covered murders, armed robberies, events originally believed to be terrorist acts and even an airplane crash as a journalist, and after working fires, floods, car crashes, bomb scares and various other disasters as a volunteer fireman, The Business Press Maven has seen human nature during difficult times.

And while you can't responsibly draw too many parallels between legitimate real-world disasters that imperil life and limb and what amounts to tough-stuff financial markets that only harm wallets, there are two similarities:

1. Most people rise to the occasion.
2. While the difficulty is in progress, more rumors than you can count make the rounds.

Those who fall for every stray fear that passes for fact are generally not the ones who do what's behind Door No. 1 and rise to the occasion.

Granted: In this case of the financial markets, basic circumstances merit enough fear. Considering that the housing and leveraged-buyout markets are getting their long-awaited comeuppances, The Wall Street Journal is right to run a global blowout map and scorecard.

I'm not saying things are butterflies and kittens here.

But look at what MarketWatch just ran and you'll get my point.

The article's headline is "Goldman(GS Quote) hedge funds suffer losses: Bank's largest hedge fund, Global Alpha, will remain open, source says."

The lead: "Two Goldman Sachs hedge funds have suffered losses in recent weeks, but the investment bank is keeping them open, a person familiar with the situation said on Thursday."