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Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Citigroup Coverage: Too Clever by Half

   November 5, 2007 04:00 PM

   Um, the business-press is talking to itself again. Coverage of this morning’s forced resignation of Charles Prince, Citigroup’s chairman and chief executive, reads like journalists writing for each other and their sources All sorts of reasons are offered for Prince’s... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   A Clean Scoop on Merrill, Etc.

   October 26, 2007 12:25 PM

   The New York Times beat the world with a story by Jenny Anderson and Landon Thomas Jr. that says Merrill Lynch & Co.'s embattled chairman and chief executive, E. Stanley O'Neal, talked to Wachovia about a possible merger. This... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   The Audit Recommends: Nocera on Fox Business, Others

   October 22, 2007 03:45 PM

   The New York Times's Joe Nocera is funny and perceptive in his column over the weekend in which he reviews last week’s debut of Fox Business News. His best line was probably his first: It was Thursday around 4:30,... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Dow Jones’s False Dawn

   October 18, 2007 10:42 AM

   Dow Jones & Co. reported its third-quarter earnings this morning, and, really, as a shareholder, I couldn't ask for better results. Earnings excluding special items rose 68 percent crushing analysts' consensus forecast by 22 percent. But the news gets... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   At or Above-Prime Subprime Primers

   October 17, 2007 03:30 PM

   Non-business press readers are probably asking themselves whether they should be worried about the ongoing crises in the housing and financial markets. The answer is: Yes, more than you think. The talk these days is of a financial superfund, a... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   An Above-Prime Collaboration

   October 10, 2007 03:56 PM

   On the subject of business-news coverage of Citigroup and suprime lending, Diana B. Henriques of the New York Times reminds The Audit that a March 2000 Times piece I praised earlier this week on First Alliance Mortgage... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   More on Citi and the Business Press

   October 8, 2007 01:20 PM

   Editors from major dailies on both coasts wrote to say I blasted with too wide a blunderbuss last week in wondering why it was left to a small periodical to reveal how Sandy Weill built Citigroup on a foundation... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Tale of Two Citis

   October 3, 2007 09:30 AM

   A long time ago, before the turn of the century, subprime lending was a marginal business—economically, ethically, every way. The business was basically left to the hustlers. Financial carrion. Birds of prey. Let's face it, only the likes of Commercial... Continue reading

9. The Kicker

   $70-Million Nit

   September 24, 2007 10:46 AM

   Reminder to headline writers and reporters on the Dan Rather-CBS lawsuit story: He didn't file a "$70-million lawsuit" last week. As a wise westerner points out to The Audit, it is marginally relevant that he's seeking $70 million... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Lovers of the Press, Liberty Must Root for Cubs

    September 21, 2007 11:27 AM

    As a Burkean liberal and paleo-librarian of longstanding, like many of you, The Audit has long understood that the Chicago Cubs represent all that is good in this life: the sun (day baseball); nature (ivy); tradition (a mechanical scoreboard); openness... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Our Score: Murdoch 2 - Journalism 0

    September 18, 2007 12:33 PM

    Kudos to Keith J. Kelly of News Corp.'s New York Post who has more scoops this week. He says Larry Ingrassia, who heads The New York Times's business section and who has forgotten more about News Corp.... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Greenspan, Iraq, Oil. How’s that again?

    September 17, 2007 10:21 AM

    In the second-to-last paragraph of a story on page A3 Monday, The Wall Street Journal says Alan Greenspan was "himself a behind-the-scenes advocate of overthrowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein." He says he felt "getting Saddam out of there... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    “The Insurance Hoax” and the Business Press

    September 12, 2007 12:05 PM

    When applying for a grant last year from George Soros's Open Society Institute to report on the insurance industry's response to Hurricane Katrina, I anticipated two things: insurers would play a make-or-break role in the Gulf region's ability to... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Down With The Conflict-of-Interest Police

    September 4, 2007 11:56 AM

    The New York Post's well-sourced Keith J. Kelly published a good item last week saying that a book idea floated about News Corp.'s successful takeover of Dow Jones, which would have been authored by the The New York Times's... Continue reading

15. The Kicker

    Per Suits

    August 29, 2007 10:07 AM

    People familiar with goings-on at The Wall Street Journal tell The New York Times that Wall Street's top watchdog is changing the name of its Saturday section from Pursuits to Weekend Journal, just like the Journal's Friday section. It's... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    The Subprime Mess From Mount Olympus

    August 27, 2007 03:35 PM

    Who’s to blame? The human race, first and foremost. Well-intended public policy, second. And Wall Street, third — if only for taking what generations of policy makers have so unwisely handed it. This Op-Ed piece in the Sunday... Continue reading

17. The Kicker

    Recommended

    August 23, 2007 10:19 AM

    The Los Angeles Times has a poignant story today on research that shows how the long-supressed memories of Holocaust survivors resurface with age. It tells the story of 96-year-old Rachel Kane who experienced, but never discussed, things that beggar... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Prime and Subprime

    August 21, 2007 04:58 PM

    The business press can always be counted on to explain in authoritative detail why we just lost a trillion dollars. The Wall Street Journal a few years ago won a Pulitzer, for some reason, for doing just that. What's... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Dow Jones Down

    August 13, 2007 10:45 AM

    And so Dow Jones & Co., once the proud lion of financial news, goes down instead like a jackrabbit shot while sprinting across a field, tumbling just long enough to hold a discussion about tradition, responsibility, ethics, Schumpeter and other... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Why the Dow Jones Vote Matters

    July 30, 2007 04:33 PM

    NEW YORK -- Last Nov. 14, 38-year-old Martin A. Siegel, one of Wall Street's leading investment bankers, was spending the afternoon in the Park Avenue offices of Martin Lipton, an eminent takeover lawyer and a man Mr. Siegel had come... Continue reading

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