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Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   On Paulson’s Sole-Source Account in the WSJ’s News Pages

   February 1, 2010 01:24 PM

   On page 350 of Too Big To Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin reports on how Hank Paulson reacted that fateful Sunday, September 14, 2008, upon learning that the British government was refusing to approve an emergency deal to have... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   NYT’s AIG Story Puts Spotlight on State Insurance Regulation

   February 1, 2010 10:49 AM

   The anachronism that is state-based insurance regulation has basically gotten a pass in the financial crisis—what with all the problems in federally based banking regulation. But a 19th-century holdover it surely is, and the Times's Mary Williams Walsh does a... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   Best of 2009: Dean Starkman

   December 29, 2009 08:00 AM

   Note to Audit Readers: The Audit will be taking off its green eyeshade and pince nez during a holiday break starting December 24 and will return Monday, January 4, 2010. Meanwhile, enjoy our best work from 2009. This batch from... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   NYT’s Creativity On the Unemployment Story

   December 15, 2009 05:56 PM

   The Times deserves a little something extra in its pay envelope for this morning's unemployment package: a story based on a poll of the unemployed, a graphic, and, most affectingly, video interviews with out-of-work workers. To me,... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Everybody’s Got an Angle

   December 14, 2009 05:42 PM

   It’s probably an understatement to say that we at The Audit weren’t nuts about the prospect of News Corp. buying The Wall Street Journal, the world’s leading monitor of corporate behavior, the economy and markets, for reasons duly <a... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   “He Could See Over”

   December 7, 2009 01:09 PM

   This is a eulogy for Mark Pittman, a Loeb-award-winning Bloomberg reporter who died on Thanksgiving, given by his friend and Bloomberg colleague, Bob Ivry. Pittman was a friend of ours here at The Audit. We also... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Hertz Drops a Libel Suit

   December 1, 2009 12:41 PM

   A tip of The Audit’s green eyeshade to Aaron Elstein and Crain’s New York, which seems to have gotten some results after shining a light on the hardball legal tactics of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and other financially troubled corporations... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   The Pittman Way

   November 30, 2009 02:53 PM

   Q: Tell me how your cops background plays into what you’re doing now. A: You end up with a big BS detector as a cops reporter because the cops lie to you, the victims lie to you, the people helping... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   A Too-Narrow Lens

   November 24, 2009 03:04 PM

   Zach Carter hits on something interesting about shareholder democracy in The Nation this week (disclosure-longer-than-this-post: I wrote a piece for that magazine; Victor Navasky, CJR’s chairman, is its publisher emeritus; and The Nation Institute partly underwrote... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    What’s a News Brief Worth?

    November 20, 2009 09:08 AM

    The Journal Inquirer, of Manchester, Conn., which over the summer forced its larger rival, the Hartford Courant, to admit to plagiarizing some of the JI's local news coverage, took its dispute a step further yesterday, suing the Courant... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    WSJ Scoops on AIG

    November 11, 2009 08:19 AM

    The WSJ scores a nice scoop this morning with word that the relatively new head of AIG wants to quit over government compensation restrictions. The news falls into the medium-sized category since CEO Robert Benmosche hasn’t actually done anything... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Trivial Pursuit at ProPublica

    November 6, 2009 09:32 AM

    There is a journalistic school of thought emerging, I fear, that holds that because you went to the trouble of investigating something you publish, whether you find anything worthwhile or not. This comes to mind after reading <a href="... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Regulation: Cool, At Last

    November 5, 2009 12:15 PM

    We appreciate the bizpress’s newfound attention to Washington political fights over regulatory and economic policy, and we’re not afraid to say so. Before the crash, as we’ve also said, the Wall Street and Washington press corps might as... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    The WSJ’s 3% Solution

    November 4, 2009 07:17 AM

    A Journal story this morning reports that a White House claim that the stimulus bill saved or created 640,000 jobs is overstated. The number of jobs the Obama administration credits to federal stimulus money could be overstated by... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Times Maintains Consumer Credit Drumbeat

    November 3, 2009 11:15 AM

    The Times has done a really nice job exploring dubious practices in the credit-card industry, not to mention efforts to reform it. These are all subjects close to my heart. Today it has a new installment... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Foxy Headines in the New Journal

    November 3, 2009 09:09 AM

    The Murdoch Street Journal has been a slow-motion overhaul, and it takes a minute sometimes to realize that things you skim over today would never have appeared a couple of years ago. “State Death Taxes Are the Latest Worry”... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    As Goldman Turns

    November 3, 2009 08:26 AM

    For my money, McClatchy’s Goldman series remains the best show these days on business-press Broadway. It’s sort of the “Masterpiece Theater” to Matt Taibbi’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” In previous episodes, Goldman is seen selling defective securities... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    US Banker on Bank Rescues: “all so hit or miss.”

    November 2, 2009 02:47 PM

    Speaking of tick-tocks, and I recently was, American Banker's US Banker magazine just published a credible entry on the bank-rescue follies of the fall of 2008 by Jeff Horwitz, who wrote it as a school project upstairs... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Carr Has a Point about Business News In the Dumps

    November 2, 2009 10:11 AM

    David Carr looks at the business press and sees a connection between staffing cuts at business news outlets and the diminished standing of businessmen, and business in general, in the eyes of the public. He says it's more than... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    McClatchy Tightens Ties Between Goldman and Predatory Lenders

    November 2, 2009 07:33 AM

    McClatchy is running a big series on Goldman Sachs that does what other business news organizations have so far failed to do: start from scratch and reexamine where the big bank fits into the mortgage crisis. (Not that it's a... Continue reading

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