Author Archive

Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Turning Point: Middle Class Under Seige

   June 11, 2008 09:00 AM

   This is part five of a series on the start of the 2008 presidential election’s general campaign. Links to the rest of the series can be found at the bottom of the article. In September 2005, I was reporting... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   The Winkler Way—Okay?

   June 3, 2008 11:30 AM

   I am deep inside Bloomberg LP’s global headquarters, the Lexington Avenue office of the financial-information giant. With its post-modernist design—sweeping interior vistas, bristling clusters of computers, oversized screens blinking up-to-the-minute sales figures, streaming stock tickers, TV studios, financial radio chatter... Continue reading

3. Q and A

   Worse Than It Seems

   May 27, 2008 09:00 AM

   With the economy apparently already in recession, gas prices near record levels, food prices rising, and inflation generally gaining momentum, economic issues are moving to the center of the presidential campaign. Political reporters have been forced to learn the... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   60 Minutes’s Biovail Trainwreck (cont.)

   May 22, 2008 10:05 AM

   Last month, we wrote how 60 Minutes and Lesley Stahl had botched a business story by using, of all companies, Biovail Corp. as an example of a supposedly honest firm under attack by, according to the piece, a marauding... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   WSJ’s Committee of the Absurd

   May 21, 2008 11:16 AM

   I see The Wall Street Journal’s Special Committee has given itself a new name, or at least tried to define its role in life. This becomes important now that Rupert Murdoch ">has appointed his confidant and... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   The Anglo-ization of The Wall Street Journal

   May 8, 2008 01:16 PM

   LAKE JACKSON, Texas -- When Lisa Kelly learned she had leukemia in late 2006, her doctor advised her to seek urgent care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But the nonprofit hospital refused to accept Mrs. Kelly's limited... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Little Buttercup

   May 1, 2008 03:00 PM

   And what of the opera singer? You remember: Natalie Bancroft, the twenty-something aspiring diva who wound up on News Corp.’s board to represent the Bancrofts? Oh, come on. The Bancrofts. Descendants of Clarence Barron—almost? Fine—descendants of Barron’s wife’s eldest... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   WSJ committee Must Prove Its Mettle

   April 30, 2008 11:52 AM

   At a certain point, tragedy turns into farce, and we are getting awfully close to clown-car territory at The Wall Street Journal. The special committee on editorial integrity, created last year as part of the News Corp. deal for... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   The WSJ’s Little Committee That Failed…

   April 24, 2008 02:47 PM

   So much for the editorial side agreement that was supposed to protect The Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence from News Corp. meddling. And so much for the five luminaries who make up the committee designed to enforce the agreement.... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Brauchli’s Exit Is…

    April 22, 2008 12:26 PM

    The abrupt resignation of Marcus Brauchli as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal is surprising even to those of us who saw News Corp.’s takeover of the Journal’s parent as a journalistic disaster in the making. The best... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Open Letter to Les Moonves

    April 16, 2008 12:30 PM

    If nothing else, Katie Couric’s earlier-than-expected departure from the CBS Evening News should call into question the superstar anchor system for television news. And if CBS executives can’t see the end of her $15-million-a-year contract as an opportunity to add... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Congress and the Press—Together Again

    April 14, 2008 08:31 AM

    What a difference Congressional oversight makes—for the business press, if nothing else. The last two weeks, the financial (and front) pages have been as busy as O’Hare over the holidays with stories about the Federal Aviation Administration’s overly cozy relationship... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Audit Mailbag: ‘Stop the Class Warfare’

    April 9, 2008 12:54 PM

    The Audit sometimes gets interesting mail from readers, and from time to time we’ll be posting some of it in an Audit Mailbag. A “Debits and Credits” item critiquing a Wall Street Journal story on borrowers in foreclosure... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Pulitzers A Triumph For Investigations

    April 8, 2008 12:23 PM

    Army officials say they "started an aggressive campaign to deal with the mice infestation" last October and that the problem is now at a "manageable level." The big winner in yesterday’s Pulitzers? The investigation. Sure, The Washington Post won... Continue reading

15. The Kicker

    Stahled

    March 31, 2008 01:03 PM

    We don’t mean to pick on Lesley Stahl, in particular, but that Al Gore piece last night on 60 Minutes was pretty much content-free, as far as I could tell. "There's still a lot of skepticism about whether... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    60 Minutes Blows Biovail Story

    March 26, 2008 11:08 PM

    The Securities and Exchange Commission sued a Canadian drug maker this week—and in the process blew apart the premise of a two-year-old 60 Minutes investigative piece on short sellers. The March 2006 segment by Lesley Stahl sought to warn... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    In the Mad Money Swamp

    March 24, 2008 02:12 PM

    "Bear Stearns is fine,"—Jim Cramer, on CNBC’s Mad Money, March 11. The Mad Money swamp beckons. The Audit cannot resist its murky waters. It is warm and familiar, this swamp. I have been here before. I have... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    The Other Side of Schadenfreude

    March 19, 2008 01:38 PM

    Who remembers the schadenfreude? It was only a week ago—it feels like another era— that financial news publications rushed to put up the most comprehensive story about Wall Street’s joyful reaction to the fall of Eliot Spitzer. “It's Schadenfreude time... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Another Baseless Screed

    March 13, 2008 05:27 PM

    “Many reporters built careers on the prosecutor’s leaks intended to bully innocent people” - Kimberly A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Wednesday. Ah yes, she must mean those innocents over at Marsh & McLennan who demanded kickbacks from... Continue reading

20. Feature

    Red Ink Rising

    March 13, 2008 09:00 AM

    One of the paradoxes of the business press is that while everyone should read it, since we all live in the economy, not everyone does. In fact, most people don’t. I suspect, if they look at financial publications at... Continue reading

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