“Rally.” “Optimistic.” Those are words people might not expect to see on the front page of The New York Times the day after a huge financial disaster. Yet in 1929 that’s exactly what readers saw.

Soup Line outside St. Peter’s Mission, New York
City. “St. Peter’s Mission/Soup Line” #7420 (244)
courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Digital
Archives

     Subheads for the same article were equally positive: “Closing Rally Vigorous,” “Leaders See Fear Waning,” and “Hope Seen In Margin Cuts.”

     That week in 1929, the Times published 20 front-page economic stories related to the crash, beginning on October 28. Those were overwhelmingly positive by nearly 3-to-1. The crash has been linked to the start of the Great Depression – the worst economic downturn in U.S. history.

    “Officials are optimistic,” declared one Times headline from Oct. 30, 1929. Another front-page story that day presented a calm picture of the financial center. The Times said, “Despite the drastic decline, sentiment on Wall Street last night was more cheerful than it has been on any day since the torrent of selling got under way.”

    Financial coverage from the Times in 2008 stands in sharp contrast. Beginning March 14, 2008, when Bear Stearns collapsed and an emergency buyout was conceived by JPMorgan Chase and the Federal Reserve, the Times printed 12 front-page economic stories in one week. All of them were negative.

     Even when one headline appeared to be presenting positive news on March 19, the story was gloomy. “Fed Trims Rates Sharply, Sending the Markets Up,” said the headline, but readers were forced to wade through six paragraphs brimming with negativity about “recession,” Wall Street “crisis,” and inflation “worries” to read about the market’s 420-point rally. The Times buried a 3.51-percent increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the eighth paragraph, and returned to negativity in the very next sentence by presenting inflation worries.

     Aside from the Bear Stearns collapse itself, many economic woes were mentioned in reports including the dropping dollar, inflation and “erosion of consumer confidence.”

     Stories in 2008 focused on “worsening economic news” and “fears that other big banks remain vulnerable to the continuing credit crisis.” The Times even evoked the Depression era using terms like “Run on Big Wall Street Bank,” though the situation bore little resemblance to the financial disaster of 1929.

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