We've noted that the credit rating agencies are facing a pretty severe PR test right now. Moody's anyway seems to be confronting the challenge. Its president and COO Brian Clarkson has published a piece in the Financial Times that comes across as sort of defensive but not too much. Which is good. It defends itself against the main charges--such as whether raters are sufficiently independent of clients (he says ratings are determined by committee not individuals). It also repeats that market participants need to rely on other information and that the crisis may yield data that can help with future modeling. Moody's is also letting it be known that it is looking at various reform measures by adding information about how securities might perform in extreme conditions.  

For more:
- here's the Clarkson piece
- here's a Financial Times article on other reforms

Related articles:
- Credit-rating agency reform in the works
- More criticism of credit rating agencies
- Credit raters facing credibility gap?