Although the business media can't sell any ads during an economic meltdown like the one we're having now, it sure is a great chance for reporters to make names for themselves. Business reporters absolutely live for the periodic destruction of the American economy. This is their Normandy! After the jump, we survey the media landscape and pick out the winners and losers—all your favorites, from Paul Krugman to Jim Cramer, ranked on a merciless 10-point scale! [Ratings are on a 1-10 scale—with 10 being the best—and are based on how much the media person or outlet has benefited from the crisis, how right they've been, and how much influence they've had.] WINNERS

  • Paul Krugman, NYT: Yea, he just won the Nobel Prize, okay? [10]
  • Robert Thomson, WSJ: Thomson led the WSJ's recent redesign and re-imagination—which proved perfect for the big, scary headlines necessary over the last month. [9]
  • Joe Nocera, NYT, and Bethany McLean, Fortune: Scored roughly a million-dollar deal to write the "definitive" book about the crisis. These two are certainly qualified to do it, but still—lucky bastards. [9]
  • Maria Bartiromo, CNBC: The Money Honey is still the public face of CNBC, which owned this crisis top to bottom. [8]
  • Lionel Barber, FT: Editor of the paper that's been consistently serious enough for long enough not to make anyone wonder about its political motives when the crisis went down. [8]
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin, NYT: Wunderkind M&A reporter and Dealbook chief who is just everywhere. He got a shitload of money for a book. [8]
  • Steve Liesman, CNBC: Senior economic reporter, and a man who's been getting way more face time with Wall Street big shots lately than their wives have. [8]
  • John Gapper, FT: Chief business commentator at the solid pink paper, he's been admirably hard on the villains. [7]
  • Charlie Rose, PBS: Landed a big interview with Warren Buffett—the last investor anybody trusts. [7]
  • John Carney, Clusterstock: He left Dealbreaker in the midst of all this as possibly the most visible young, bloggin', new media name who actually knows what the hell is going on. [7]
  • Felix Salmon, Portfolio: He's one of the better finance bloggers and has managed to stay on top of the crisis consistently, when not working on 12,000 word analyses of the Gawker pay structure. [6]
  • Daniel Gross, Newsweek: Maybe smartest of all, plans a "quickie electronic book" to be published before the end of the year. Do less work, get out first, heyo! [6]

LOSERS

  • Fox Business Network: Yes, the little network finally got a measurable audience because of the crisis, and yes, they go to throw some decent shots at Jim Cramer. But the comparison to CNBC just makes them look bad. [4]
  • Charlie Gasparino, CNBC: Got a lot of airtime as a talking head, which is good for him. Was working on a book about reckless leaders at Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns before Bear Stearns collapsed, which could mean a lot of pain in the ass rewriting. Comes off as a bit of wingnut by trying to pin the whole meltdown on Obama. [4]
  • Andrea Mitchell, NBC: Trying to report while being married to Alan Greenspan, one of the guys most responsible for this whole thing. Ha. Time to retire, maybe? [3]
  • Book Publishers: Who's going to buy all these books? [2]
  • Jim Cramer, CNBC: Gave intermittently terrible advice, then made it worse when he tried to correct it. Overly emotional, which is not the thing people want in a money manager. See a roundup of his whole weird year here. [1]