Adam Davidson’s Journalistic Corruption: NPR Host Boosts for Wall Street, While Taking Undisclosed Banking Money

By Yasha Levine and Mark Ames • S.H.A.M.E. • August 8, 2012

“I feel like the voice of business journalism is sort of, it’s an authoritative voice of God.”

—Adam Davidson

Adam Davidson is the co-creator and host of the popular economic news radio program Planet Money. On air, Davidson plays the role of an earnest, brainy reporter who’s doing his best to make sense of the complicated, jargon-filled world of finance to report business news in a way that NPR listeners can understand. However, behind the dweeby, faux-naive facade Adam Davidson presents to his listeners, is a shrewd propagandist with a long, consistent history of shilling for powerful and destructive interests—and failing to disclose his financial ties to the companies and industries he reports on.

Over the years, Davidson has boosted for the Iraq War and whitewashed the occupation of Iraq, praised sweatshop labor and “experimenting on the poor,” attacked the idea of regulating Wall Street, parroted libertarian propaganda about the government’s inability to directly create jobs, argued for “squeezing the middle class,” and shamelessly fawned over Wall Street for allegedly blessing Americans with “just about anything that makes you happy.” (Read Adam Davidson’s full S.H.A.M.E. profile.)

While Adam Davidson has recently come under increasing scrutiny for using his NPR platform to promote the narrow interests of the super-wealthy in this country, little attention has thus far been given to Davidson’s corruption—his numerous financial conflicts of interest that seriously undermine his claims to being a journalist, and instead reveal Davidson as a glorified product spokesman for his Wall Street sponsors.

Adam Davidson gained national media recognition as an on-air personality in 2008, after co-producing an episode for This American Life called “The Giant Pool of Money” about the implosion of subprime lending. Although Davidson’s segment was praised for making the murky world of finance easier to understand, his framing of the subprime housing debacle served another purpose: It let Wall Street off the hook for its role in rampant criminal mortgage fraud and predatory lending...

http://shameproject.com/report/adam-davidson-corrupt-wall-street-booster/

"His favorite, I had long ago known, was John Connally. As early as October 6, four days before my resignation, the President had asked the former treasury secretary to accept the vice presidency. Both men knew it would give Connally a clear track to the White House in 1976. Connally wanted it, but he backed away when his enemies in both parties threatened to block his confirmation by the House and Senate and to drag the hearings on for many months. He was too new a boy in school to muster support from the Republicans in Congress, and his recent defection from the Democratic party did not endear him to those on the other side of the aisle.

By choosing Connally, Nixon would have become embroiled in another vicious partisan dispute, exactly the thing he was trying to avoid. So, with reluctance, he had to drop his favorite. He feared controversy would also rage if he chose Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, or Barry Goldwater, all of whom were being strongly recommended by their friends. So he quickly settled on Gerald Ford, the amiable Michigan congressman who had acheived popularity, if not great distinction, as the House minority leader" ...


http://www.amazon.com/Go-Quietly-Else-Spiro-Agnew/dp/0688036686

Gerald Ford watched on his television in his suburban Virginia home, as Richard Nixon handed the presidency over to him, his vice president of the past 10 months. Nixon became the first Chief Executive in U.S. history to resign the presidency.

After Nixon's brief address announcing his resignation, cheers could be heard throughout the nation's capital, as well as chants of "Jail to the Chief."

The end of Nixon's years in the White House came when he released secret tapes showing his involvement on the Watergate cover-up on June 3, 1972, one week after the break in of the democratic national headquarters. Congress' support for its leader eventually evaporated in his bursts of outrage over the prospects of impeachment.

On April 22, 1994, nearly two decades after the incident, Nixon died in his home state of California at the age of 81. The 4,000-plus mourners present, including every living American president and dozens of other world leaders, remembered Richard M. Nixon for his efforts to improve relations with Moscow, for opening the door to China and for finding an end to the Vietnam War.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/221293/70/This-day-in-history-President-Richard-Nixon-resigns