How Can They Forget the First AOL Wedding?

03/15/08 - 10:40 AM EDT

Before we get to the decisive date in history -- Jan. 10, 2000 -- an anniversary that few in the business media seem to remember as well as their own, we are going to hand out two easily earned though coveted Business Press Maven "Nod of Approval" awards.

It is a bit outlandish that it had to come to this to note a crazy-good piece of commentary, but everything in life is comparative.

Friday, while covering the Bear Stearns(BSC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) uber-debacle, CNBC's David Faber simply dismissed the company's book value out of hand. To which The Business Press Maven says: "Bravo, hallelujah and so on and so forth."

Readers and viewers know that I have been scolding the business media in print and video (I'd use smoke signals too, if I thought it would work to inform investors) not to mention a financial firm's book value with a straight face. Here was my mantra: "No one knows what's on their books -- even they don't." And more recently, when speaking of Citigroup(C - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and a positive article in Fortune that had the temerity to refer to book value in total earnestness: "Book value is a cosmic, celestial joke when it comes to financial companies."

Anyhow: Good work by Faber, but remember to look out for this still, savvy investor, even after the Bear mess, when more bottom-fishing articles like the mistimed mess in Fortune will appear. Remember: Most journalists value books. But that is where it should end. And it does not mean you should pay them any heed when they express faith in the book value of companies that were pricing securities however they wanted.

Another quick note of praise, before we go back to Jan. 10, 2000. In October, when searches for the term brought up nothing in major media outlets, The Business Press Maven started talking about stagflation. Why? Well, my Small Pleasure Index had tripped up. I spotted signs of stagflation in products that constituted the small pleasures in life: pizza, chocolate and beer, God bless them all. If I saw stagflation there, it had to exist more broadly, too.

Now on to inflation, which some people argue doesn't exist (though, obviously, a lot more people are mentioning it now than were mentioning stagflation back then.)

Well, you can read about it in the Houston Chronicle, which gets a "Nod of Approval" for pointing out that some currency now costs more to produce than it is worth. The article notes that this is the first time an American coin has cost more to produce than it was worth since the U.S. Mint got into the money-printing racket in 1792.

That was back before The Business Press Maven began shaving, which means this is a considerable development and a signal that inflation is here.

And now the week's booby prize, the dreaded "Back of the Hand" award. It goes to any business media outlet -- like The Financial Times -- that reported on the AOL division's Bebo purchase without mentioning Time Warner (TWX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and AOL's merger on Jan. 10, 2000, which also produced language about how they were going to "supercharge" the "monetization" and all that happy wedding-day talk about mergers between an old company and a new, online one that just might already be behind the curve.

The more mergers change, the more they stay the same.