The financial media has become a Wild West of misinformation — why aren’t there laws to rein it in? – by Frank Giustra (Toronto Star – April 5, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

The internet is littered with so-called financial experts who urge you mortgage everything you own to fill your boots with assets like bitcoin. As a result, thousands of novice investors get fleeced like lambs, Frank Giustra writes.

Fake news! Everyone is complaining about it. No matter if you are politically left or right leaning, we’ve all expressed our dissatisfaction with news stories relating to topics centred around politics, climate change or the pandemic.

We tend to complain loudly when we see “fake news” on those topics. But how often do you hear complaints about unreliable information in the financial media? I certainly haven’t run across much over the years.

When I joined the investment business many years ago, there were few outlets where one could get information on investing. The Wall Street Journal, Barons and The Financial Times are the only ones I recall, and for the most part we trusted the content to be sober and unbiased.

Today, there are literally endless platforms, news outlets, and internet-based sites spewing investment information and advice. It seems anyone can be a financial journalist. The result is an unprecedented level of confusion in an environment that invites all types of entertainers and charlatans; the uninformed and the self-serving to regale us with their “investment advice.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2022/04/05/in-the-financial-medias-wild-west-its-viewer-beware.html