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	Phil's Blogservations Wednesday, November 27, 2002 Posted by philgomes 2:54 PM The Road To Journalistic Hell Paved With Good Intentions: Regulators now want to exercise counter-constitutional prior restraint on journalists, crashing into their interviews with financial analysts. As covered by The Los Angeles Times (with my own emphases added): Last week, the New York Exchange and the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, which operates Nasdaq, sent to the SEC a proposed regulation governing stock analysts' conversations with print journalists. In interviews, analysts would be required to disclose any potential conflict of interest posed by their own stock ownership. If a newspaper or magazine fails to print that information along with any comments attributed to the analyst, the analyst would be forbidden to speak again to the offending publication. Failure to abide by the regulation could result in fines or suspension of the analyst. The New York Times is also carrying the story. This creates a chilling effect on financial reporting. Though analysts like Blodgett and Meeker have been famously excoriated for their two-faced conflicts—recommending stocks their companies underwrote, but knew were total crap—the analyst community is an important part of the financial reporting picture. If this passes, very few analysts will want to talk to a journalist. Reporters will refuse to talk to analysts because doing so blunts freedoms that the media enjoys. I'm all for more transparency in the analyst community, but this goes too far. Way too far. Instead, I support NASD's compromise: That the law apply to analyst-authored columns and byline articles. | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a free video game console. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.