Elinore Longobardi : Author Archive : CJR

Columbia Journalism Review; Strong Press, Strong Democracy

Author Archive

Articles by Elinore Longobardi | Email the Author

Feature

How ‘Subprime’ Crushed ‘Predatory’
October 12, 2009 09:50 PM
What is the root cause of the financial crisis? “Lousy loans,” says Elizabeth Warren, the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel. We agree. And we like the phrase, especially because it provides a nice counterweight to that other double-L... Continue reading
The Audit

Three Faces of Greeley
August 24, 2009 09:43 AM
What do you know about New Frontier Bank? We can pretty confidently say, that depends on where you live. If you live in Greeley, Colorado, where New Frontier was based before regulators closed it earlier this year, you know a... Continue reading
Page Views

Asphalt Jungle
August 19, 2009 01:07 PM
Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City | By Anthony Flint | Random House | 256 pages, $27 All city dwellers, and especially New Yorkers, owe a debt to... Continue reading
The Audit

Derivatives Echo Chamber
March 9, 2009 01:26 PM
The Audit wants to know. What role did the press play in diffusing financial warnings in the years leading up to the current crisis? We can’t answer that question in its entirety—especially not in one post—but we can offer an... Continue reading
The Audit

Frontline Disappoints
February 23, 2009 06:54 AM
Dismay. That was our response to Frontline’s recent documentary on the financial crisis. And our problem wasn’t even with the crisis. It was with Frontline. We turned our TV to PBS with high expectations—Frontline has earned that—but its... Continue reading
The Audit

The Business Press and the Cult of Personality
February 19, 2009 04:45 PM
In times of great troubles, it is natural to look for a savior, someone who can get us out of trouble with a wave of the hand and a confident smile. The business media is like that. It is... Continue reading
Page Views

Two Lives
February 4, 2009 07:00 AM
Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line By Martha Sandweiss | The Penguin Press | 384 pages, $27.95 Passing Strange is one of those books with precisely the right title. It is... Continue reading
The Audit

A Guide To Bailout Transparency Sites
January 30, 2009 09:35 AM
It is no secret that bailout transparency is a problem. Now that taxpayers have become financiers, we have a right to know where the money is going. In search of organizations with the curiosity and resources to help figure... Continue reading
The Audit

A City in the Ditch
January 19, 2009 08:05 AM
An Audit Credit to The Weekly Standard for helping to fill one of the business press’s yawning reality gaps: the space between "Detroit," the metaphor, and Detroit, Michigan. In a recent cover story titled “Down & Out in Detroit,”... Continue reading
The Audit

Losing Lehman
January 8, 2009 09:04 AM
The press has a Lehman problem. We’ve suspected as much for a while now, but only steeled ourselves to trace its outline after we came across an unfortunate New York magazine cover story in early December on former... Continue reading
The Audit

Ebony on the Fall of Detroit
December 3, 2008 09:59 AM
A Credit to Ebony for a piece describing how the tribulations of the U.S. auto industry are hitting African American communities particularly hard. We read a lot of articles on Detroit these days, but this one stands out for... Continue reading
The Audit

Portfolio: Anybody Home?
November 25, 2008 03:14 PM
A Double Debit to Conde Nast Portfolio for offering us an extended portrait of luxury homebuilder Bob Toll as a gutsy CEO who is down but not out, and then following that unfortunate puff piece with another one... Continue reading
The Audit

New Yorker’s Hot Air on Poverty
November 17, 2008 04:23 PM
Things we really don’t like: Articles that pose a question with an obvious answer and then, pretending the answer is not obvious, spend thousands of words arriving at the conclusion we already knew. The New Yorker did this in a... Continue reading
The Audit

Herb Sandler: I’m Hit, But ProPublica’s Fine
November 12, 2008 12:10 PM
Readers may have wondered about the future funding of the new investigative-news organization ProPublica, if they saw an October 30 Bloomberg wire story on the impact Wachovia’s share decline has had on philanthropists Herbert and Marion Sandler (a link... Continue reading
The Audit

Semi-Official Symbol of Woe
November 11, 2008 03:06 PM
Continue reading
The Audit

The Economist (Heart) Utah
November 7, 2008 09:51 AM
A Debit to The Economist for adding to the list of stories that try too hard to give good news on the economy. This time the press goes local in looking for a bright spot, explaining to us... Continue reading
The Audit

The Great Man Theory and Hank Paulson
November 5, 2008 04:09 PM
The mythology of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson got a helping hand recently from a spate of magazine cover stories unwilling to fundamentally criticize the man they present as our last best hope. The Great Man Theory may be out of... Continue reading
The Audit

Halve Not
October 31, 2008 09:49 AM
A Debit to Reuters for posting a 19th century headline—and getting it wrong. The topic is undergarments. Specifically, Hanesbrands, about which Reuters had this announcement on October 29: “Hanesbrands Q3 profit more than halves.” In plain English, they are... Continue reading
The Audit

Where are the Subprime Toasters?
October 24, 2008 09:54 AM
Sometimes we come across pieces that are so clear, relevant and to-the-point that we feel like quoting them to you in toto. So it is with Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi’s short piece in Harper’s, advocating a... Continue reading
The Audit

Disposable Story
October 23, 2008 10:01 AM
A Debit to Fortune for repeating an old canard of the business press: that an increase in the personal savings rate means Americans are becoming thriftier. The problem is that the savings rate, as calculated by the... Continue reading

—advertisement—

Desks

The Audit Business

The Observatory Science

Campaign Desk Politics & Policy

Behind the News The Media

Receive a FREE Issue

of Columbia Journalism Review

If you like the magazine, get the rest of the year for just $19.95 (6 issues in all).
If not, simply write cancel on the bill and return it. You will owe nothing.