Joe covered the story of the greatest worldwide financial disaster since the Great Depression. He gave us the a weekly play by play during the financial crisis.
His ability to explain complex ideas such as collateralized debt obligations (CDO) derivatives was amazing. Ideas that were dry and could make your eyelids go heavy were presented in an engaging an informative manner.
He was a journalist's journalist calmly publicizing what many in power would very likely not have wanted known.
Bankster CEO salaries? he was there.
Lack of accountability? he was reporting it.
Our very own muckraker bobswern approvingly linked to his stories more than once.
He went on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show to explain things to us.
He even wrote a book that was well reviewed.
His downfall came suddenly and curiously.
Joe published a column at the NYT supporting the natural gas plan proposed by T Boone Pickens (and to his credit he acknowledged his friendship with him). The plan calls for (among other things) retooling Americas diesel based semi trucks to use Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). It also calls for drilling for more natural gas.
Hilariously --- ON THE SAME FREAKING DAY -- the NYT ran a story (TITLE: Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems )describing the fears of experts and about the grave dangers of natural gas extraction with the use of "fracking." Fracking seems to be an apropos name as it apparently fracks with the ground water. Ground water is very useful to the people of upstate New York and Pennsylvania where a ginormous source of natural gas sits ( it is the worlds second largest reserve of natural gas ).
He was furiously thrashed in the comments section of his column (over 200 comments, mostly castigating him for not even attempting to show the other side).
With his journalistic creditability now on life support, Joe published yet another column today. In it he calls in to question the credibility of one of the major experts who testified against "fracking." What did Joe identify as his potential bias? The fact that the expert was wearing a badge saying "No Fracking" ...and get this: Has testified against it.
Joe's journalism was so vigorously attacked in the comments section of that column that outside experts have declared it dead.
Mr. Nocera is survived by his colleague Paul Krugman.