Credit on Mozilo story

Too bad the Daily Journal is still so hard to access without a subscription because the newsroom will often come up with strong pieces that get very little attention. Case in point is yesterday's news, first posted by the WSJ, about the SEC's staff recommending that civil charges be brought against former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. But the Daily Journal's Gabe Friedman had a similar story back in early March. Here's how he begins (no link available):

Former Countrywide Financial Corp. CEO Angelo Mozilo and possibly other high-ranking former executives with the mortgage giant likely will face civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to attorneys familiar with the case. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said SEC lawyers in Los Angeles are developing a case asserting the company's executives, including Mozilo, misled shareholders about the true condition of its credit risks. Central to the investigation are Countrywide's allegedly relaxed lending standards, beginning in late 2006, which many analysts say exposed the company to unwieldy risks, the sources said.

That piece barely made it onto the local wires (a chronic frustration for small publications before the Internet began leveling the playing field). While we're on the subject of giving credit, it's worth remembering that the LAT's Kathy Kristof questioned Mozilo's stock dealing in September of 2007. The Times has done some fine work on the mortgage meltdown, going back to early 2005 when Mike Hudson and Scott Reckard laid out some of the shenanigans going on at Ameriquest. CJR's Dean Starkman mentions that story to illustrate how some business reporters were indeed following the money.