CNBC: kid gloves for bankers, boxing gloves for bank critics

Interviews with Barofsky, Spitzer, and Krugman underscore the network’s capture

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 29, 2012 at 12:13 PM

We're all for aggressively skeptical interviewing—I've often wished we could import Brits to do our presidential interviews, for instance. But... More

Audit Notes: the national debt, Bailout, ProPublica on campaign finance

GOP jujitsu on Obama and deficits

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 29, 2012 at 06:50 AM

Ezra Klein, anticipating a lot of Republicans disingenuously blaming Obama for the national debt, points to a Center on Budget... More

The NYT’s weak coverage of rental-car consolidation

With Hertz/Dollar Thrifty deal, three companies would have 94 percent of the market

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 28, 2012 at 11:12 PM

The rental car business is a highly concentrated industry controlled by four companies. It's about to get much more concentrated,... More

Audit Notes: GOP gold bugs, too big to fail, Niall Ferguson

The myth of hard money

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 28, 2012 at 06:50 AM

The Republicans have put the gold standard (or at least a commission to study the idea) back in their party's... More

Audit Notes: China slows, Romney’s taxes, copyright

Inventories pile up, posing another threat to the global economy

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 27, 2012 at 06:50 AM

The New York Times looks at a glut of goods clogging up Chinese warehouses—an ominous sign for the global economy:... More

WaPo dings the ‘give-it-away-free approach’

A mess of a story on Facebook

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 24, 2012 at 06:50 AM

There's all kinds of irony about the Washington Post slapping a company for a "give-it-away-free approach" that has hurt share... More

Audit Notes: Gawker’s Bain scoop, file sharing and record sales, Niall Ferguson

A document dump raises questions about tax strategies

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 24, 2012 at 01:55 AM

Gawker's John Cook got hold of 950 pages of confidential Bain Capital documents related to Mitt Romney and put them... More

The New Yorker on Obama as fundraiser (UPDATED)

Fascinating reporting but an overly sympathetic portrayal

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 23, 2012 at 11:00 AM

It's hard to read Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece on campaign fundraising without thinking about how embarrassing and corrupting it... More

Required skimming: Euro crisis

Understand all the overseas finance stuff that nobody gets

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 22, 2012 at 06:50 AM

This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food.... More

Audit Notes: Newsweek standards, Luddite fallacy, crowdfunding scams

Everyone but the magazine fact checks Niall Ferguson

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 22, 2012 at 06:50 AM

Paul Krugman asks: We know what Ferguson is going to do: he’s going to brazen it out, actually boasting about... More

Newsweek’s Niall Ferguson debacle

A misleading cover story gets the wrong kind of buzz for Tina Brown’s mag

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 21, 2012 at 11:00 AM

It's been a long time since I've seen a cover story so comprehensively demolished as Newsweek's disengenuous anti-Obama piece by... More

Audit Notes: Fake or real Jeff Jarvis?, Wolf on Ryan, robots and labor

Replacing copyright with something called “creditright”

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 21, 2012 at 06:50 AM

This may seem like a Fake Jeff Jarvis post, but it's real-life Jeff Jarvis: Creators don’t need protection from copying.... More

Misleading and incomplete coverage of Apple’s ‘record’ value (CORRECTED)

Microsoft’s 1999 market cap still, by far, bigger

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 20, 2012 at 02:06 PM

The big market news today is about Apple's gargantuan market capitalization reaching a new, stunning high: Bloomberg News: Apple Becomes... More

Audit Notes: Newspapers v. Postal Service, student debt, taxes

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 20, 2012 at 11:00 AM

The newspaper industry's situation is already apocalyptic, but the Associated Press reports it could be about to get worse. The... More

SmartMoney is confused on wages, inflation

When prices matter and when they don’t

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 17, 2012 at 06:50 AM

This SmartMoney post on "Why You're Not Getting a Raise" doesn't make sense. The lede: Didn’t get a raise this... More

The WSJ editorial page and Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan

Bogus numbers and rewritten history

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 16, 2012 at 11:06 AM

The Wall Street Journal editorial board's Joseph Rago makes a whopper of an error in a column Tuesday extolling Paul... More

Audit Notes: Bill Black on CNBC, LAT eyes Ryan’s budget, robosigning

The ex-regulator might as well have been beamed in by the Curiosity rover

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 16, 2012 at 02:44 AM

Bill Black goes on CNBC and shreds Maria Bartiromo and Bethany McLean on whether Goldman Sachs (and others) could and... More

Audit Notes: Romney’s taxes, NBC’s win, turning off the Web

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 15, 2012 at 06:50 AM

Joe Nocera writes about the sharp choice facing voters in November, and so it is. But this strikes me as... More

A critical eye on the ‘skills gap’

The Free Press, Star Tribune, and USA Today ask questions

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 14, 2012 at 06:50 AM

There's no shortage of uncritical reporting on the notion that employers, and particularly manufacturers, can't find enough qualified workers even... More

Audit Notes: Romney’s Ryan taxes, FDR or Ayn Rand, Morton Mintz

The Atlantic on what would be Mitt’s “Path to Prosperity”

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 14, 2012 at 01:56 AM

The Atlantic's Matthew O'Brien has the best snap financial analysis of Mitt Romney's pick of Paul Ryan as a running... More