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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Reports of the Malls’ Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

   February 2, 2009 08:48 AM

   The Times on Sunday tossed off a variation of that old journalism standby, "The Death of the Mall," going to the Mall of America to get the pulse of the consumer economy. THERE are roughly 1,500 malls in... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Seattle P-I: Feds Knew About Widespread Mortgage Fraud

   January 30, 2009 10:52 AM

   The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's days may be numbered, but it's still got some scrap. It put out a nice story the other day reporting how the FBI for years was very aware of the pervasive mortgage fraud going on across... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   “Populist” or Just the Truth?

   January 30, 2009 09:09 AM

   I have a nit to pick with the Times's lead story today about Obama calling Wall Street's $18.4 billion in bonuses "shameful." It has to do with its use of the word "populist", which The Audit has bemoaned... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Don’t Blame Us!

   January 30, 2009 08:32 AM

   It's time for a quote of the day. This from a good Bloomberg story about Davos participants in denial about their culpability for the financial crisis. Ladies and gentlemen—private equity firm Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein: “There are six billion... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   How One Job Loss Cascades Through the Economy

   January 29, 2009 04:37 PM

   I love this story in the Journal's Currents section today. My former colleague Ben Casselman traces the economic impact of one Dallas family suffering through a job loss. This is just really well-done writing and reporting on the economy... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Bloomberg Bird-dogs Transparency Issues

   January 29, 2009 11:12 AM

   We at The Audit continue to be impressed with Bloomberg News's aggressive accountability journalism. Its pursuit of transparency in the government bailout, for one, has been second to none. Today it has two great stories on the murky nexus... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   Good Madoff Scoop from the Times and Il Sole 24 Ore

   January 29, 2009 08:52 AM

   A good Madoff scoop from the Times this morning is also interesting for how it came about: a collaboration with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The story reports that JPMorgan had $250 million with one of the... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Reporting the Stimulus Plan

   January 28, 2009 03:14 PM

   Does the press have a lot on its hands these days, or what? I've lost count of how many trillions of bailout money have been laid out (fortunately for all of us, Bloomberg keeps track: $8.5 trillion and counting).... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Breaking: 4 Minute Wait for Decaf at Starbucks

   January 28, 2009 11:15 AM

   Talk about commodity news. We've gotten on the Journal before for its weird Starbucks obsession obsession, but today it goes overboard again. It reports that Starbucks is going to stop brewing decaffeinated coffee in the afternoons, forcing... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    LAT Is Good on Foreclosures

    January 28, 2009 08:34 AM

    The LA Times is excellent today on the dismal state of housing in California, the ground zero—one of them, anyway—of the housing bust. The paper reports that more people lost homes in the state last year than in the previous... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Inside a Layoff

    January 27, 2009 01:40 PM

    The Journal also has an excellent front-page "ahed" today—a first-hand, real-time look at the layoffs that are swamping the economy. The paper got remarkable access to a small Ohio tile manufacturer as it went through the process of slashing... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    WSJ Crushes the Competition

    January 27, 2009 10:02 AM

    The Journal dominates the John Thain/Merrill Lynch/Bank of America fiasco story today. Thain fired back at B of A yesterday, defending himself by saying the bank knew about his plans for Merrill bonuses and about its massive losses. But... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Bloomberg Picks Apart Madoff “Enablers”

    January 27, 2009 08:57 AM

    Bloomberg comes down hard on Madoff's so-called feeder funds, which it correctly labels "enablers" in its headline. If the 70-year-old money manager was running a con, then his marketers like Access International, wittingly or not, were part of the... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Thain Again

    January 26, 2009 02:27 PM

    So now it's John Thain's turn to wave the knife. The Financial Times leads its page one this morning with a report that Bank of America officials were involved with Merrill Lynch's now-infamous bonuses before they were enacted and... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    Times on the Move Toward Nationalization

    January 26, 2009 10:02 AM

    The nationalization argument keeps picking up steam, and it keeps making sense—at least compared the other harebrained schemes that have been tried or proposed. Today, the Times lays out the issues facing the Obama administration on how to handle... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Journal with More on TARP

    January 26, 2009 08:41 AM

    The Journal this morning has some good reporting on the failure of TARP to stimulate lending, its second very good report in the last few days. It says ten big banks that got money dropped their total loan... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    The Buddy Can You Spare a Dime Index

    January 23, 2009 12:53 PM

    Reuters, via Atrios: Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ.O) said on Friday it will launch options trading on its three-week old Government Relief Index, which tracks the performance of companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers... The Government Relief Index lists... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Say ‘Hey’ to WSJ on Pay

    January 23, 2009 11:50 AM

    Credit The Wall Street Journal for some good number-crunching and analysis today on a hidden facet of executive pay, which—guess what?—allows execs to take more of their shareholders' money. Mark Maremont, one of the Journal's top investigative reporters (he's... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Thain the Vain

    January 23, 2009 09:26 AM

    And so now we have our Dennis Kozlowski, our Leona Helmsley of the current crisis. Thanks to Charlie Gasparino of CNBC (cross-posted at The Daily Beast), John Thain will go down in infamy as the poster boy (at least... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Audit Interview: Alan D. Mutter

    January 23, 2009 08:36 AM

    Alan D. Mutter is a veteran of the ink-stained days who in the two decades since he left as No. 2 editor of the then-mighty San Francisco Chronicle has helped create a large cable-TV company and several start-up tech firms.... Continue reading

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