Nike Reax is NOT a Low Profile Shoe

From hanging out on political sites like DailyKos, I'm thoroughly familiar with complaints from bloggers who get really annoyed by shoddy reporting. As bad as the media can be when it comes to reporting on politicians, sometimes I think Wall Street reporters are worse.

Part of the problem is that they take the word of analysts as gospel. Apparently, if the employee of a Wall Street firm says it, then it doesn't need to be fact checked. Which is just crazy cause analysts say all sorts of wrong shit. Just now I was watching an online finance video on which an analyst stated with a straight face that Nike's near term sales will feel the pressure of a recovering Reebok brand. Pick up the phone and talk to any footwear buyer in the country and you will quickly find out how wrong that statement is.

This morning I came across a prime example of poor reporting in the form of an article entitled "Nike Continues to Dominate Athletic Shoe Sector As Low-Profile Shoe Trend Emerges." The reporter references two recent reports on Nike written by analysts, and the whole thing is riddled with innacuracies.

Perhaps you can call this a quibble, especially since there's a chance that the reporter didn't write the headline, but first off, low-profile athletic is NOT an emerging trend. A couple day ago in fact, I was chatting with a department store buyer who was arguing that the trend was starting to fade in importance!

That bitch aside, here's the paragraph that really pissed me off:

Nike Reax points to a new trend toward lower-profile, lower-cost shoes, that may be contributing to weaker performance at footwear retailers such as The Finish Line Inc. and Foot Locker Inc.

The Reax is NOT a low profile shoe. It's a takedown of Nike Shox and on top of that, Nike doesn't distribute it to either Finish Line OR Foot Locker. Consumers can only buy the style at family footwear chains like Famous Footwear.

Here's a picture of the shoe so you can see for yourself:


^^Nike Reax: not a low profile shoe

This paragraph wasn't so hot either:

The Finish Line in September reported second-quarter sales that declined 1 percent in the third quarter, below expectations.

Yes, The Finish Line's sales were down, but it actually beat earnings expectations. But don't take my word for it, here's a quote from an article published shortly after Finish Line reported its results:

The company earned $9.9 million, or 21 cents per share, compared with $18.9 million, or 38 cents per share, during the same period last year. The results edged out Wall Street expectations, with analysts polled by Thomson Financial expecting earnings of 20 cents per share.

I have no doubt that Wall Street reporters are likely crushed by deadlines, not to mention the need to write about a wide variety of industries, but come on, this is people's money and there is really no excuse for this level of innacuracy when all the facts are not just out there, but easily accessible.