At the concept level, the "What's My Investing Fee?" sounds like a good pitch. How many everyday investors ask this same question? Increasingly more, because that's what they're told to do. Indeed, it would be of some value to conduct a Jessie Watters-like man-on-the-street interview of these everyday investors as they go about trying to determine the fees they pay.

The WSJ, however, took a big risk in choosing how to go about writing this story. Rather than collect anecdotes from regular people, the article chronicled the emotional frustration of its own reporter as she tried to learn her fees. By using this approach, the paper may have inadvertently revealed a major Achilles' heel in their ranks, as well as the ranks of financial journalism in general.

Before we get to that, let's take a walk in the shoes of our hypothetical editor.  (I say hypothetical not because we don't know if there was an editor – there most certainly was – we just can't know exactly what that editor was thinking.) I've talked with enough editors over the years, and been one for nearly eight years now, to have some idea how the thought process works.

As published, the story "What's My Investing Fee?" neatly fits the meme of the incompetent/misleading financial service provider. Now, we know that not all financial advisers are incompetent and/or misleading (the same, by the way, is true with journalists). Yet the unrealistically oversimplified stereotype reinforces the cognitive bias of the meme. It also sells newspapers. Publishers like selling newspapers. Publishers hire editors. Editors, too, know where their bread is buttered.

Unfortunately, the story makes the mistake of following the reporter as she tries to find the true nature of her investment fees.

Mind you, this is no mere reporter, but an "investigative reporter." No doubt the editor viewed this as an added plus to indict the firm who didn't get its fees straight. That this was the obvious intent can be discovered upon reading the line, "The experience left me wondering whether someone even less savvy than me, a Wall Street Journal reporter, would be able to navigate this system, to ferret out the good information from the bad."

Sounds compelling, right? Except, the editor forgot to consider this interpretation…

…Why would a financial reporter, no, an investigative reporter specializing in the financial field, not know how to find the fees associated with her investments right away? Reporting on a specialized subject presumes some minimal competency on that subject. Working for a publication whose entire expertise is based within a specialized area (such as, in the case of The Wall Street Journal, finance), presumes an above-average, almost expert level of proficiency. What this article reveals is that the reporter not only has no expert proficiency, but apparently lacks even a minimal competency. That The Wall Street Journal would expose this to its reading public suggests maybe the editorial itself may lack the awareness of this deficiency.

That's just in the area of financial investigation. One can make the case there was a similar faux pas in the area of straight journalism. To wit, if you want to know the actual dealer cost of a car, do you ask the salesman or do you find an independent third party?

Similarly, when trying to determine your investment costs, why wouldn't you first go to your mutual fund prospectus (which, as a legal regulatory document, functions in much the same way as an independent third party)? Indeed, you might even consider the prospectus to be the primary source for any fees and the service rep a secondary (or possibly tertiary) source. One would expect investigative reporters to know this. And their editors, too.

And the folks associated with this article probably do know this. But imagine how the article would have read if it recounted the reporter's ventures to the primary sources. It would have lacked the passion of the human element which comes out clearly in "What's My Investing Fee?" (I might add, the reporter does an excellent job making the article more human through the effective use of humor.) People like reading articles with a human element. That means these types of articles sell newspapers. Publishers like selling newspapers. Publishers hire… well, we've already gone over this.

It doesn't matter if the reason behind the nature of the article was gross incompetence or sly marketing. In either case, the reader suffers in the appeal to cathartic emotion rather than helpful reason. It makes one wonder how many other articles suffer from the same malady.

Now, here's the real problem with appealing to the reader's emotion rather than focusing on reason: It enables financial illiteracy. Reading "What's My Investing Fee?" allows anyone "less savvy than" the reporter to excuse their own ignorance of fees and use the blanket excuse "if a Wall Street Journal reporter can't navigate this complicated sea, how can I?" I don't think it's the Wall Street Journal's intent to cause this response. Then again, I don't think, when raising taxes to increase revenues, it's the intent of politicians to actually discourage taxable activity (and thus generate fewer tax revenues).

If I were the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and a reporter pitched me the idea of "going undercover" to prove how hard it is to find out exactly how much one pays for their investments, I would have suggested a different route.

Rather than focusing on the "bad guy" financial service provider (been there, done that, bought the tee shirt with Madoff's "Who me?" face on it), I'd ask the reporter to find the answer to this question: Why do so many people not ask about fees before they engage their investment adviser? Better yet, why do some people get the answers to the "fee" question up front while others just dive in? Are there any particular traits that might indicate whether a customer is apt to demand the fee information up front or instead buy without asking?

Finding the answers to these questions won't just make for a more unique (and interesting) story. They will increase the level of financial literacy among the audience.

And isn't that in the best interests of the reader?