Media Navel Gaze: October 24, 2011
The Week Unpeeled
The Arab spring turned to Arab fall last week with the death of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi (The New York Times spelling), whose death was a bloody viral event that was clouded by confusion when the news broke on who killed him and how he died. (The New York Post claimed a Yankees fan, because one of the assassins was wearing a Bomber hat.) Interesting over the weekend that the front page of The Times and The Wall Street Journal used the exact same photo of Libyans queuing to view the body. President Obama also announced that the US will pull out all its troops by year in Iraq following nine years of occupation.
Elsewhere:
- Groupon downsized its offering in a filing that stated the Internet company would sell just 5.4 percent of its shares;
- News Corp held its annual meeting on Friday in Los Angeles amid new allegations that the hacking scandal even targeted Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge;
- JP Morgan Chase became the largest bank in the US, beating out Bank of America, with assets of $2.29 trillion;
- As bank ranks shifted, Goldman Sachs announced it a quarterly loss, a rare event for the bank.
- The Occupy Wall Street movement has now also caught on in London, with protesters camping outside St. Paul’s Cathedral for the past six days and forcing the cathedral to close to visitors for the first time since World War II;
- European Markets rose on Friday as European leaders held a series meetings to discuss resolving the French and German rift, how to head off a Greek default and agree upon a “definitive” plan to end the euro crisis; and
- The Dow rallied on Friday 2.3 percent to end on a positive note for the fourth week in a row at 11,808.
