The risks and benefits of so-called payday lending are certainly worthwhile of media coverage, and genuine instances of fraud or exploitation are and should be fodder for criticism in the print media. But it helps when your highlighted victim actually has good credit to start with and/or isn’t consistently turning to Internet loans to supplement income.

The rest of NewsBusters piece is here.

Some key quotes:

Carey bases his article almost entirely on anecdotal evidence and on statements by activists with an axe to grind: apart from the borrowers themselves, every single person or group quoted in the article is at the left end of America’s political spectrum. Carey also confuses cause with effect, ignoring the possibility that homeowners facing foreclosure may already be doomed financially by the time they head to the local money mart for a payday loan.

To sum it all up, the groups that Carey treats as impartial experts, are anything but. These are the same groups that coined their own neologism –the “unbanked”—to describe those who lack bank accounts, as if conducting transactions using financial institutions were somehow a basic human right.

And journalists wonder why the American public doesn’t trust them.