Scarecrow - 4:01 pm on Aug 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

In fact if the media didn't tell us how would we know...

Google mentioned this issue in their original S-1 filing on April 29. The media took longer than three months to pick up on it. Don't assume that the media will tell you anything unless the "buzz" is such that editors decide it's a story and deserves "play."

The real story of Google is not this snafu (there are tons of unpublicized Google snafus available for reporting), but the fact that the media's estimation of the "buzz" has shifted in the last three months. Now a story like the failure to register stock for three years is suddenly a story after all.

Unless the IPO is a dramatic success, the coverage in the media will go downhill very quickly from this point forward.