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Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

 

1. The Kicker

   Don’t Listen to Searby

   July 26, 2007 12:46 PM

   The New York Times Co. reported yesterday that its second-quarter earnings fell from the same period a year ago. No surprise there. But, please, don't listen to Frederick Searby, a J.P. Morgan Securities analyst and all other... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   What the Bancrofts Owe Dow Jones

   July 19, 2007 11:38 AM

   It's on the Bancrofts now. That hard-bargaining Dow Jones & Co. board has agreed to sell the Bancroft's patrimony for 60 pieces of silver and a piece of paper that says Rupert Murdoch won't ruin the The Wall Street Journal.... Continue reading

3. The Kicker

   The Right Prescription in the Journal

   July 13, 2007 10:30 AM

   Kudos and a smart salute to Sarah Rubenstein and the WSJ for a tough and intelligent story on Big Pharma quietly backing a nonprofit group in its efforts to get state legislators to tie the hands of pharmacists who... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Parsing the Anonymice at Dow Jones and the Journal

   July 10, 2007 11:23 AM

   This New York Times piece from Monday says an unnamed person connected to Dow Jones management and unnamed senior editors at The Wall Street Journal are promising job cuts if the News Corp. offer isn't accepted. If the $5... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Ottaway to Bancrofts: Resist the Murdoch Temptation

   July 9, 2007 10:45 AM

   If Dow Jones & Co.'s board agrees to a sale to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., as seems likely, the transaction would have to be approved by DJ shareholders, principally by holders of so-called Class B shares who control 62% of... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Independence Day

   July 3, 2007 03:21 PM

   Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. —Tom Paine, The American Crisis The board of directors of the corporation, when evaluating any actions or transactions described in paragraph (a) of... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Why News Corp. Can’t Cover the U.S. Business Story

   June 29, 2007 12:40 PM

   The business press, I have to say, has done a terrific job vetting News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch as potential owners of the nation's leading financial organ, The Wall Street Journal. The press rightly understands a broader community interest in... Continue reading

8. The Kicker

   Pitiful

   June 26, 2007 10:20 AM

   This News Corp. statement speaks for itself. It comes near the beginning of the second day of The New York Times series on Rupert Murdoch's company, and it tells business-press readers all they need to know about about why... Continue reading

9. The Kicker

   Don’t Miss The Post Cheney Series

   June 25, 2007 12:29 PM

   The Washington Post series, by Bart Gellman (The Audit's onetime officemate, I'm proud to say) and Jo Becker, so far gives readers wonderful insight into how things actualy work in Washington, and it reads like a dream. How Cheney... Continue reading

10. The Kicker

    The Audit Recommends…

    June 25, 2007 11:01 AM

    Business-press readers get even more reasons to oppose a Dow Jones sale to News Corp. from The New Yorker's rundown of Rupert Murdoch's past misuses of news pages for personal or corporate interests (The Audit is mentioned toward the... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Agency Problems at Dow Jones and the WSJ

    June 21, 2007 04:03 PM

    You can't tell the players without a scorecard, and today The Audit will spell out where the economic interests of business-side and news-side executives at Dow Jones & Co. and its prized asset, The Wall Street Journal, stand in regard... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Secular vs. Cyclical

    June 19, 2007 11:46 AM

    Jack Shafer finds a page one piece in Sunday's New York Times about a slowdown in online retail sales to be bogus, another forced trend story. The original story says that online sales growth is slowing from a peak... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Changes at the Journal

    June 14, 2007 01:40 PM

    The Wall Street Journal's new managing editor, Marcus Brauchli, made some changes in the newsroom that are bold if nothing else. When was the last time you heard of senior editors being stripped of their titles? His memo to the... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    The WSJ Story is Fine, But…

    June 13, 2007 11:41 AM

    The WSJ did a story last week on the explosive growth of state-owned insurers of last resort. This is a fine story that makes an important point: the public has quietly been taking on massive liabilities, particularly since the... Continue reading

15. The Kicker

    Samuelson says there’s nothing to be done

    June 7, 2007 12:27 PM

    The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson today weighs in with an informed column on cultural changes affecting income inequality. His conclusion: it's not necessarily bad and its roots are too complicated to do much about anyway. He also hopes the... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Loss of Wartzman column reveals LAT’s biz coverage priorities

    June 6, 2007 04:11 PM

    One of The Audit's numerous sources in the business press passes along the following letter by Peter Dreier, a politics and policy professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, to Los Angeles Times business-page editors. The letter (it's not a... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    How to Kill a Story

    June 5, 2007 10:31 AM

    How do you kill a story? It must be hard, right? All reporters know the truth: any monkey can do it. "Are you sure of your facts? Have you got a smoking gun here?" Or how about: You're "boring people."... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Great story; a concern and a thought

    June 4, 2007 10:32 AM

    Business-press readers and family therapy buffs alike will get a kick out The Wall Street Journal's Saturday story on discussions among the Bancrofts, controlling shareholders of the newspaper's publisher, Dow Jones & Co., about whether to sell to Rupert Murdoch's... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Financial Times Bears Down

    June 1, 2007 11:37 AM

    The Audit can't resist the two-column, paper-leading story (badly underplayed on the Web) by Saskia Scholtes, who got hold of a letter from a hedge fund group complaining to a trade association that banks are doing too much to... Continue reading

20. The Kicker

    DJ’s unsuitable suitors

    June 1, 2007 10:13 AM

    The news that Dow Jones & Co.'s controlling Bancroft family will consider selling the company, including to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., while not a surprise, is still a shock. Neither public company mentioned as a potential suitor mentioned... Continue reading

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