Author Archive
Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author
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
On a wild night of news, a remarkable press performance
While Reddit fails again
By Ryan Chittum Apr 19, 2013 at 07:49 AM
Last night was one of the wildest nights of news I can ever recall. With Boston already on edge in... More
The New York Post’s disgrace
The paper smears a kid and a young man on its front page as possible terrorists
By Ryan Chittum Apr 19, 2013 at 06:50 AM
At some point, you even have to hold the tabloids to account. That point is now with the New York... More
Audit Notes: Retail life, statutes of limitations, newspaper bulls
CBS MoneyWatch looks at how shops jerk workers around
By Ryan Chittum Apr 18, 2013 at 06:50 AM
CBS News's MoneyWatch is good to take a hard look at life for workers in the retail industry, which not... More
Paywalls did not cause the fall of WSJ longform
The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal misses the Murdoch
By Ryan Chittum Apr 17, 2013 at 06:30 PM
Alexis Madrigal asks whether The Wall Street Journal's paywall is responsible for its turning away from longform journalism. That one's... More
The problem with financial literacy as a fix
Helaine Olen on enabling blame-the-victims apologies
By Ryan Chittum Apr 17, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Helaine Olen has an eye-opening column in The Guardian on the concept of financial literacy and how it's misused to... More
Audit Notes: Reinflating the bubble, Nader in the WSJ
The LA Times reports on a new rush in Southern California
By Ryan Chittum Apr 16, 2013 at 11:00 AM
The Los Angeles Times has a good and disturbing look at how the LA housing market is already showing signs... More
Audit Notes: WSJ and labor, Tumblr-speak, not the London whale
Getting it right on a nursing-home worker shortage
By Ryan Chittum Apr 15, 2013 at 08:30 AM
I got on the Journal last week for completely missing labor's point of view in a story on cranky McDonald's... More
McDonald’s through management’s eyes, in the WSJ
Rude employees who, oh by the way, make poverty wages
By Ryan Chittum Apr 12, 2013 at 11:00 AM
The Wall Street Journal reports that internal McDonald's documents say that the fast food chain's customer service is "broken"—that it... More
Populism and financial crises
A Columbia professor’s thesis on Canadian and American banking gets credulous WSJ treatment
By Ryan Chittum Apr 12, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Wall Street Journal credulously reports on a new paper by Columbia B-school professor Charles Calomiris on why we have... More
Audit Notes: The paywall problem, Thatcherism, Googlebots
Keeping out the youth of America
By Ryan Chittum Apr 11, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Alan Mutter has this to say about the pitfalls of paywalls: The case for paywalls would seem to be compelling:... More
AP’s pension probe misses the broad view
Good reporting is undermined by a lack of context
By Ryan Chittum Apr 10, 2013 at 12:55 PM
The Associated Press has a tough three-part investigation out this week looking at corruption in an old Washington state pension... More
Audit Notes: Not so scammy, engineer world, Americans’ low taxes
A Bloomberg View column’s alleged scamming of the FDIC looks perfectly legal
By Ryan Chittum Apr 10, 2013 at 10:40 AM
William D. Cohan roughs up newly former SEC Chief Mary Schapiro and former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder in a... More
Audit Notes: Reuters in court, 97-month car loans, the missing 000s
A flurry of legal activity for the wire service
By Ryan Chittum Apr 9, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Reuters has been in the legal news a bit lately, and not in a good way. First, the Journal reported... More
Audit Notes: Plain Dealer, Silicon Valley openness, debt and borrowing
Cleveland execs trot out the Advance Publications talking points
By Ryan Chittum Apr 8, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, whose slogan not so long ago was "Miss a day, miss a lot," will go to... More
Revolving door spins for Schapiro and Breuer
Former SEC and DOJ officials cash in
By Ryan Chittum Apr 3, 2013 at 06:50 AM
So you make big bucks as partner at a top law firm at the "nexus of Washington and Wall Street."... More
BusinessWeek’s billion-dollar boo-boo
A poor piece spreads bogus news about Amazon’s Goodreads acquisition
By Ryan Chittum Mar 29, 2013 at 05:32 PM
Bloomberg BusinessWeek makes itself look silly today, running a speculative piece on how much Amazon paid for its latest acquisition,... More
Audit Notes: The Times-Picayune, Dimon’s hubris, the QuikTrip model
Shakeups in the Louisiana newspaper war
By Ryan Chittum Mar 28, 2013 at 12:22 PM
Gambit's Kevin Allman reports that the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Baton Rouge bureau chief is out after six months. My long... More
Audit Notes: Columbia navel-gazing edition
A tech site takes down Michael Wolff’s thoughts on Twitter
By Ryan Chittum Mar 27, 2013 at 06:50 AM
It's always fun to see a Michael Wolff trolling get demolished. This one's at the hands of PandoDaily's Hamish McKenzie.... More
IPOs for the masses
A global business leader wants IPOs for his countrymen, in Quartz
By Ryan Chittum Mar 26, 2013 at 06:50 AM
When Quartz launched, it said that its "mission is to serve today's new class of global business leaders" who "have... 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)
Public television’s attempts to placate David Koch
One journalist took matters into his own hands when a fellow audience member wouldn’t stop using her smartphone during a theater performance
Purchasing Tumblr is Yahoo’s flashy bet on a shift in social media
The shift from Facebook to more creative social networks
Gay Talese’s outline for ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,’ 1966
Handwritten on a shirt board
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.




















