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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Dell Hell, Colleges and Credit Cards, Revolving Door

   June 30, 2010 08:55 PM

   The New York Times knocks out a well-reported story on how computer-maker Dell shot itself in the foot by screwing its customers: After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   McClatchy Is Hard to Read on Goldman

   June 30, 2010 07:50 PM

   Speaking of Goldman Sachs investigations, McClatchy adds another installment to its Goldman series, reporting that the bank now admits that it used AIG to make proprietary bets (meaning, for itself—not a client) against the housing market. That appears... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   NYT Digs Further Into the AIG Backdoor Bailout

   June 30, 2010 01:57 PM

   Just when you thought the AIG/Goldman Sachs backdoor bailout scandal couldn't smell any fishier, The New York Times wades through 250,000 pages of a document dump and came out with a story showing in more detail how the government... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Board Pay, the Hubris of Big Business, Taibbi vs. Logan

   June 29, 2010 08:53 PM

   The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has an excellent investigation into board pay at public companies in Wisconsin. While compensation for chief executive officers has long been a focus of shareholders and the media, pay for board members has largely escaped scrutiny... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   BizWeek: BP Has Us Over a Barrel

   June 29, 2010 09:22 AM

   We've been on the watch for BP's PR line, and it's been popping up at an alarming rate in the press. We've heard about the beleagured British pensioners, who will be sent to the poor house if BP's... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Audit Notes: WSJ iPad, Bled Dry, Grease Up the Revolving Doors!

   June 28, 2010 08:22 PM

   The Wall Street Journal's iPad revenues are less than it led us to believe. Business Insider prints an internal memo that spells out the $400,000 ad buys that six companies made: Each package was US $400,000 and each... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   More on Boycotting BP from the LAT

   June 28, 2010 08:02 PM

   The Los Angeles Times gets in on the boycotting-BP-just-hurts-small-businesspeople meme. It's better than some of the other stories we've seen in this genre, but it still swallows some BP spin uncritically. BP and the gas-station owners would love... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   Rolling Stone and the MSM Copyright Thieves

   June 28, 2010 10:51 AM

   It's good to see David Carr take Politico and Time to task for their egregious violations of copyright (not to mention journalistic standards) in posting full PDFs of Rolling Stone's huge McChrystal story. As I wrote last Tuesday:... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   Audit Notes: Reform Report Card, Bhopal vs. BP, “Power Problem”

   June 25, 2010 05:37 PM

   Barry Ritholtz's very helpful report card on financial reform. Up top, he gives the bill a big fat "F" on too big to fail. Richly deserved. Money quote: The crisis legacy is a financial services sector that is highly... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    Covering the “Historic” Financial Reform Bill

    June 25, 2010 12:36 PM

    You're going to read a lot about how the financial-reform bill agreed to by Congress this morning is "historic" and the "most sweeping since the Great Depression." The press loves superlatives like that because reporters love to think they're part... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Paper It Over, Katrina Whistleblowers, Google Ad Fun,

    June 24, 2010 07:54 PM

    The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel flat-out says "Congress is planting the seeds of the next big bank bailout." He's right. The provision would permit more than 7,800 banks, with nearly $3 trillion in assets among them, to spread... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    Marshall Island “Regulators”—What Could Go Wrong?

    June 24, 2010 05:55 PM

    Let's circle back around to last week's excellent Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune report on the Deepwater Horizon. Did you know the Deepwater Horizon rig (which is technically a ship) itself was flagged and thus regulated by the... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    Weil on How the Government Shields Fraudsters

    June 24, 2010 10:52 AM

    Did you know you can't sue somebody if they help cheat you out of money via securities fraud? I didn't. Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil has an excellent column today on that, noting how an attorney named Joseph Collins, who helped... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Audit Notes: SEC Chills, Tallahassee Paywall, Goldman TLC

    June 23, 2010 07:27 PM

    Felix Salmon takes on the SEC's backdoor subpoena of two Dow Jones journalists' communications: ... it nullifies a huge amount of the welcome sentiment behind the SEC’s policy on asking for information from journalists, if the SEC can... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    CNBC’s Quick Pushes for Prosecutions in Fortune

    June 23, 2010 12:51 PM

    The combo of CNBC and Fortune, while not quite a WSJ editorial board/Forbes sandwich, doesn't exactly make you think McClure's. Okay, it still doesn't, but all the same, applaud CNBC anchor Becky Quick for her column taking prosecutors... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Rolling Stone Robbed, STOLI, Forbes.com SEO

    June 22, 2010 09:32 PM

    Our Greg Marx wrote about how Politico and Time, bizarrely, posted Rolling Stone's blockbuster scoop on General McCrystal and staff's insubordination before RS itself did. And I mean, they posted the whole scoop—a full PDF of the story... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    “BP Journalists” and Their Greatest Propaganda Hits

    June 22, 2010 07:55 PM

    The Wall Street Journal's Benoit Faucon got a hold of BP's in-house magazine Planet BP, and has some fun with it. But in Planet BP — a BP online, in-house magazine — a “BP reporter” dispatched to Louisiana managed... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    The SEC Is After Two Dow Jones Journalists’ Emails

    June 22, 2010 10:03 AM

    Gary Weiss asks a heckuva good question: "What in heaven’s name is the SEC thinking? Is it completely out to lunch?" Admittedly, you could say that about just about anything the SEC does. But Weiss reports that the <a... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Audit Notes: Magnetar, ICP Unmasked, Communities vs. Corporations

    June 21, 2010 08:06 PM

    The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that the SEC is ratcheting up its investigation of Magnetar, the hedge fund that almost singlehandedly kept the housing bubble going by buying CDO equity tranches so it would have something to... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    “Rock-Jawed Titans of Industry Don’t Really Like Free Markets”

    June 21, 2010 07:11 PM

    Kevin Drum, in dismissing Matt Ygeslias's qualms about over-regulating the credit and debit card industry, touches on an excellent point here: Unfortunately, as economists since Adam Smith have pointed out, most of our rock-jawed titans of industry don't... Continue reading

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