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Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   A Bureau Where They Reported Stories to Death

   October 30, 2009 11:11 AM

   The hue, cry and gnashing of teeth over News Corp.'s takeover of The Wall Street Journal's parent a couple of years ago mystified a lot of people, many of whom wondered what was so great about the... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Following AIG and Goldman: the Friedman case

   October 29, 2009 12:00 PM

   Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are doing a good job of ignoring the unhelpful business press convention of not revisiting older stories and returning to the scene of the extraordinary AIG bailout. The Journal's Liam Pleven reports this... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   WSJ’s Clean Galleon Get

   October 28, 2009 02:31 PM

   There's nothing quite like a clean scoop of a delicate nature on a major story of global interest. But that's what the Journal's Robert Guth and Don Clark pulled off early this morning when they named Hector Ruiz, the... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Another Totemic Story in the WSJ

   October 27, 2009 11:22 AM

   I was sent up there to cover the Hot Rod & Custom Car show by the New York Herald Tribune, and I brought back exactly the kind of story and of the somnambulistic totem newspapers in America would have come... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   WSJ: New Banking Sheriff in Town, Again

   October 26, 2009 09:50 AM

   The Journal this morning offers a classic beat-sweetener, a profile of a tough new banking regulator appointed to clean up the terrible mess created by the lax old banking regulator about whom readers weren't, um, told at the time,... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Cornerbacks and WSJ Editorial Writers

   October 23, 2009 04:00 PM

   Moreover, some of the Senators seem worried that repealing Glass-Steagall might open up markets to terrible and maybe unforeseen risks. That's a natural fear among folks who were mostly out of school decades before modern financial instruments appeared on the... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Making Honest Choices at Fortune

   October 23, 2009 10:10 AM

   The granddaddy of business magazines says it's cutting the number of issues per year to 18 from 25, in anticipation of staff cuts both at Fortune and later across Time Inc., The Wall Street Journal's Shira Ovide reports this... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   McClatchy Advances the Ball on Moody’s

   October 19, 2009 09:30 AM

   Many people feel the rating agencies haven't gotten enough attention, given their linchpin role in the crisis. I tend to agree, even as we've noted and appreciated excellent work over the past couple years, including by the Times's <a... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Good Goldman Question From Zero Hedge

   October 16, 2009 02:20 PM

   Seems reasonable to me: "What Is The Rationale Behind The SEC's Hiring A 29 Year Old Goldmanite As Its COO?" While one may or may not have feelings about Goldman's tentacled capture of various regulatory agencies, the most... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    WSJ, Times at Odds on Citi Earnings

    October 16, 2009 09:00 AM

    I'm sure this is much more a function of the unholy mess that is Citigroup's income statement—many a journalistic braincell was no doubt destroyed yesterday trying to figure whether the bank actually turned a profit—but two leading financial outlets say... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Financial Press Perennially Surprised by “Placement Agents”

    October 15, 2009 04:23 PM

    The financial pages this morning are filled with the disclosure by Calpers that money-management firms seeking business from the big California pension fund paid $50 million to a firm run by a former Calpers director acting a middleman, or "placement... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Understanding Citi Losses in its Predatory Roots

    October 15, 2009 10:30 AM

    I see that Citigroup, amid boom times for other mega banks, got slammed again in its third-quarter earnings, primarily because of big losses in consumer lending. As the Times reports: After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, Citigroup... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Intellectually Bankrupt, Firms Try to Squash Dissent

    October 14, 2009 03:47 PM

    Crain's New York's Aaron Elstein has a good story about financially troubled corporations suing research firms that issue negative reports. Elstein writes about a suit that Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the struggling (whoops!) rent-a-car firm, is bringing against Audit... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    WaPo on High-Cost Banking

    October 13, 2009 10:03 AM

    The Post,which has done good work previously on the high cost of poverty, weighs in with a look at efforts to reign in the most abusive practices at the low-end of the financial-services industry, check-cashing, payday loans, and... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Hackers From Minsk

    October 13, 2009 09:15 AM

    Wired takes an interesting look at computer security breaches at Wal-Mart from a few years ago. It's a good probe, based on internal company documents, with most of the facts confirmed by Wal-Mart. While apparently no sensitive customer data... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    WSJ Looks at More Crawley Things in the Market

    October 13, 2009 08:20 AM

    At a time of great suspicion of all things Wall Street, stories start to emerge of sneaky tricks that insiders supposedly play to manipulate the market at the expense of the retail investor, Mr. TD Ameritrade, who can never... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Times Discovers S&L-asaurus Working For Citi

    October 12, 2009 03:32 PM

    I don't want to let the day pass without a nod to a bit of accountability reporting by Gretchen Morgenson and Andrew Martin* (see note below) in yesterday's Times, unearthing Citigroup's hiring of a lobbyist notorious for helping the... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    WSJ Misses the Mark on Consumer Credit

    October 12, 2009 10:00 AM

    It's hard to understand how a major financial news outlet, at this late hour, can discuss the "democratization" of consumer credit, without mention of two big reasons for spiking consumer debt levels, namely, declining median family incomes, a fact... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    SunHerald’s Lee, Times-Pic’s Mowbray: Still on it

    October 9, 2009 04:50 PM

    One of the true pleasures of reporting on the insurance industry's response, or non-response, to Hurricane Katrina was meeting, and reading the reporting of, the principal Gulf-area papers' reporters on the insurance angle, Rebecca Mowbray of the Times-Picayune... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Seriously Smart Column by the NYT’s Norris

    October 9, 2009 02:00 PM

    I can't let the day pass without a nod to Floyd Norris's very thoughtful column on the unintended—make that, intended, but still unfortunate—consequences of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. That law, a Clinton-era triangulation classic, was meant... Continue reading

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