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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author
Audit Notes: WSJ on the IRS, countering Kinsley, Cramer gets an ‘F’
The paper mishandles news on the Tea Party targeting story
By Ryan Chittum May 20, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Rupert Murdoch must have loved his Wall Street Journal front page on Saturday. Editors splashed this headline across the top... More
Peggy Noonan loses it on the IRS story
The Journal columnist draws an evidence-free connection to the White House
By Ryan Chittum May 17, 2013 at 06:50 AM
We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. That's Peggy Noonan today in The Wall Street... More
The other IRS target: the press
The nonprofit news experience undermines the Tea Party targeting outrage
By Ryan Chittum May 16, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Conservatives are howling about the IRS targeting Tea Party groups applying for nonprofit tax exemptions. Well, welcome to our world.... More
Audit Notes: Student loan profits, paywall incentives, postal banking
The Huffington Post on a government bonanza
By Ryan Chittum May 15, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Huffington Post's Shahien Nasiripour comes up with a great angle on news that the Education Department expects to make... More
The Bloomberg terminal scandal
Not nearly in the Murdoch hacking league, but it requires a cultural shift
By Ryan Chittum May 14, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Bloomberg terminal-snooping story is a serious ethics problem, but I've read some awfully hysterical takes on it in the... More
Audit Notes: Bloomberg apologizes, Snow Fall re-imagined, Carr on Advance
Winkler admits reporters should never have had access to customer data
By Ryan Chittum May 13, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Bloomberg News has gotten a big black eye for snooping on its customers, and Editor-In-Chief Matt Winkler apologizes in a... More
Audit Notes: Bloomberg snoops, Alan Abelson, Niall in denial
And the New York Post scoops
By Ryan Chittum May 10, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The New York Post reports that Goldman Sachs complained to Bloomberg that its reporters were spying on it via the... More
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom
And that’s saying something
By Ryan Chittum May 9, 2013 at 01:14 PM
I'm still trying to reattach my jaw after reading this op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal today. It's shameful... More
Audit Notes: Farm labor fight, government debt, dumb-question headlines
Americans sue to get farm jobs from Mexican guest workers
By Ryan Chittum May 9, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The New York Times is good to go page one with a story on a fascinating lawsuit in Georgia that... More
The Advocate raids the Picayune
Major defections from the New Orleans paper intensify a newspaper war
By Ryan Chittum May 8, 2013 at 04:36 PM
I wrote this last week about the South Louisiana newspaper war: "It will also not have a hard time poaching... More
Business Insider goes native
All but erasing the line between editorial and marketing
By Ryan Chittum May 7, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Here's a Business Insider vertical called the "Future of Business." Let's hope it's not the future of news. The problems... More
The corrupt City culture behind the Libor scandal
The Wall Street Journal’s excellent investigation digs up the dirt
By Ryan Chittum May 3, 2013 at 06:50 AM
In the real word, big conspiracies are hard to maintain. People talk. Disagreements develop. Word tends to get out. But... More
Covering somebody who’s suing you
The WSJ sticks it to Sheldon Adelson by keeping a reporter on the beat
By Ryan Chittum May 2, 2013 at 11:22 AM
Francine McKenna asked a good question on Twitter the other day about Wall Street Journal coverage of Sheldon Adelson's Las... More
An ink-stained stretch
Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
By Ryan Chittum May 1, 2013 at 12:00 AM
Rob Curley, one of the more prominent digital journalists of the last decade, had just about had it with... More
The Advocate vs. the Times-Picayune
A New Orleans businessman fires up the newspaper war with the Newhouses
By Ryan Chittum Apr 30, 2013 at 11:59 PM
The Louisiana newspaper war just got a lot more interesting. It's been a poorly kept secret in New Orleans media... More
Audit Notes: Awful on Bangladesh, the Kochtopus, US day care
Slate’s Matthew Yglesias gets it very wrong on workers and safety standards
By Ryan Chittum Apr 29, 2013 at 06:50 AM
They were still pulling the hundreds of dead bodies out of the collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh when Slate's Matthew... More
New York Times paywall growth slows
But it remains to be seen whether that’s a one-quarter blip or the new normal
By Ryan Chittum Apr 26, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The torrid growth in digital-only subscribers to The New York Times slowed sharply in the first quarter. Worse, advertising fell... More
Audit Notes: Bagged Men, whistleblowers, Times-Picayune
Rupert Murdoch, prepare your checkbook
By Ryan Chittum Apr 25, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Washington Post's Erik Wemple asks the New York Post's "Bag Men" to sue the paper for libel: So journalists... More
The fight over Internet sales taxes
The corporate and ideological motives behind the opposition
By Ryan Chittum Apr 24, 2013 at 10:30 AM
We're more than 20 years into the mainstream Web era—20 years!—and Congress is finally seriously considering force retailers to collect... More
Audit Notes: WSJ goes long, Valleywag, Boston Globe paywall
With a Boston bombings story, the paper shows what it can still do
By Ryan Chittum Apr 23, 2013 at 06:50 AM
This Wall Street Journal piece on the suspected Boston terrorists is a deeply reported (18 bylines and taglines) and convincing... More
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes
Yet another serious escalation of the Obama administration’s attacks on press freedoms emerges
A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe
Court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010
Reporter deemed ‘co-conspirator’ in leak case
The Reyes affidavit all but eliminates the traditional distinction in classified leak investigations between sources, who are bound by a non-disclosure agreement, and reporters, who are protected by the First Amendment as long as they do not commit a crime
“At some point you have to say, a law that people don’t obey is a bad law”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
