From (our new favorite) the Consumer Advertising Law Blog, “FTC Prepares to Crackdown on Conflicts of Interest in the Blogosphere“:

Controversy is brewing over whether the FTC will exercise its enforcement discretion and go after bloggers for violations of the current testimonial guides or the revised testimonial guides once they are approved (likely later this summer). The issue is whether a blogger who is compensated by a manufacturer should disclose the connection when recommending the product. The compensation can be in the form of cash, advertising dollars or products, such as a free computer or a free vacation. Does compensation in any form affect the bias of the blogger such that a failure to disclose violates Section 5? Should the concern be limited to cases of cash payment but not free product? Does it depend on the total value of the compensation, whatever the form?

Conflict of interest for bloggers, eh? And if the FTC has the power to regulate that, well…

From Politico, “Washington Post sells access, $25,000+“:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

As documented in posts here and here yesterday, The Washington Post has called the Administration’s decision to invest $250 billion in banks “nationalization” and said the act represented a move “to partly nationlize.”

It’s an inaccurate and inflammatory terminology. Here in the United States, nationalization means a government takeover, control, ownership.

In today’s Post,  Dana Milbank uses the term, but he’s a columnist who specializes in political mockery, so who cares?  A front of the business section story also mentions nationalization, but only to describe Secretary Paulson’s objections to the appearances of nationalization. Harold Meyerson, a left-wing, anti-business Post columnist writes that “the most right-wing administration in modern American history [is] scurrying to nationalize the banks.” But Meyerson is a predictable scold and Bush detractor, so again, who cares?

Meanwhile, the editorialists and business writer Steven Pearlstein eschewed the term. All in all, seems like editors are doing their job. Except on Page A6, written early in the day by political reporter Dan Eggen, “Signaling a Shift to Europe’s Path“:

In announcing plans to partly nationalize nine major banks yesterday, President Bush found himself in the unusual position of having to reassure Americans that he was not, in fact, opposed to capitalism.

That’s just flat-out WRONG.

Treasury describes the capital purchase program here.

Under the program, Treasury will purchase up to $250 billion of senior preferred shares on standardized terms as described in the program’s term sheet. The program will be available to qualifying U.S. controlled banks, savings associations, and certain bank and savings and loan holding companies engaged only in financial activities that elect to participate before 5:00 pm (EDT) on November 14, 2008. Treasury will determine eligibility and allocations for interested parties after consultation with the appropriate federal banking agency.

The minimum subscription amount available to a participating institution is 1 percent of risk-weighted assets. The maximum subscription amount is the lesser of $25 billion or 3 percent of risk-weighted assets.

That’s not nationalizing. It’s not partly nationalizing. It’s the government buying shares in a bank in order to boost their capital, a major and even history-making policy and regulatory step, to be sure. But calling it partial nationalization does the reader a disservice.

Are we being too cranky? Too paranoid? Too distracted by trivia? Too amused by emulating a Soviet-era Kreminologist poring over the lines of Izvetsia?

Don’t think so. As Meyerson’s column demonstrates, the use of the term “nationalization” to describe the Administration’s actions is an element of a political attack.  A mulitprong attack, perhaps:

• “Lousy plutocrats. They don’t believe in capitalism, just in lining their own pockets. We ought to really stick it to them. The caps on executive compensation are good, but next ….”
• “Hey, we’ve already nationalized the banks. Why stop there?”

Ultimately, the most important reason the term should be dropped from the lexicon of serious, fair-minded journalists is because it misleads and misinforms the reader about an important matter during a time when markets and public confidence are fraying. Accuracy is essential.