Opinion strayed to news pages

In the June 26 paper there were two articles on the financial reform bill that just passed. The article in the front section contained lines like “impose tough regulations,” “Wall Street stands to take a major hit,” and so on.

The article in the investments section points out that bank stocks “shot higher” and contains lines like “won’t devastate financial companies’ profits,” “the deal removes a huge cloud,” and so forth. It even quotes one industry executive as saying, “Two years later, people will look back and say, ‘My gosh, nothing really changed.’ ”

Given that bank stocks did go up on a day when the overall markets went down, I’d be inclined to believe that the investment section article is correct. Once again the politicians have managed to give the impression that they’ve done something useful while ensuring that nothing has hurt their major contributors.

But that’s just business as usual. What really concerns me is that both articles appeared in news sections, not on the opinion page. Not a good advertisement for newspaper accuracy and unbiased reporting of facts.

What gives, S-R?

Larry Blanchard

Otis Orchards