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The Audit

Fortune Sounds Out of Tune With a Facebook Piece
May 18, 2010 06:20 PM
Reading Fortune these days, it's all-too-often hard to tell we've been going through a crisis of capitalism for the last three years. I noted this a few weeks ago when writing about how it declined to print Chris Ware's... Continue reading
The Audit

Watching the Banking Canaries in the Coal Mine
May 18, 2010 11:57 AM
Bloomberg and the Financial Times are good to emphasize that the banking system—at least in Europe—is shuddering yet again in a manner that calls pre-September 2008 to mind. Bloomberg's lede: Europe’s banks are facing déjà vu. Less than... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: WaPo on a Whistleblower, Analysts, Reshuffled Toxic Assets Still Toxic
May 17, 2010 07:14 PM
— The Washington Post ran a terrific piece yesterday on UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld yesterday, a flawed hero (aren't they all) of the crisis. There are spy-novel elements here: Code names for UBS ("The Vault"), a suspicious Middle East... Continue reading
The Audit

Oklahoman Columnist Strikes Out
May 17, 2010 03:24 PM
Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman devotes an entire column to what I and a couple of others said last week on the Wall Street Journal softball photo of Elena Kagan. Or what she says we said, anyway: The... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: Some Ads Up; Mr., Mrs., Messrs.; Visualize Your Music Purchase
May 14, 2010 07:06 PM
Happy days are here again. Well, not really. But magazine ads are up (in the monthly-mag category anyway) 5 percent from a year ago, the first year-over-year increase in two-and-a-half years, reports Media Industry Newsletter's Steve Cohn. Combine that... Continue reading
The Audit

Spotty Coverage of the Financial Reform Amendments
May 14, 2010 01:14 PM
The Senate has been adding tough amendment after tough amendment to the financial-reform bill. Okay, tougher than anybody thought they would be. Yesterday saw the passage of an amendment that would rough up the credit-ratings firms, as well as one... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: Covering Investigations, the iPad Browser Threat, Rome
May 13, 2010 06:05 PM
ProPublica managing editor Stephen Engelberg has some good thoughts on how the press covers investigations, noting all the stories coming out lately about Wall Street: To be fair, this is honest journalistic labor. I've done it as a reporter... Continue reading
The Audit

The Press Misleads on a Gold “Record”
May 13, 2010 01:36 PM
Yesterday, the Financial Times, the most-sophisticated business newspaper in the world, published this head-slapper: Gold hits fresh record on inflation fears That's the headline. The story says "Gold prices continued to set fresh highs... gold reached a fresh peak...... Continue reading
The Audit

Pushing Back Against Facebook’s Privacy Practices
May 13, 2010 11:53 AM
The press has begun an overdue backlash against Facebook, whose privacy invasions have grown increasingly brazen as its user base has grown and the company has looked for ways to monetize us. I've been impressed recently... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: ProPublica’s Dead Prez Prospectuses; Citi and Deutsche, Too; Michael Lewis
May 12, 2010 06:41 PM
ProPublica's Marian Wang advances the WSJ's scoop on the Morgan Stanley "Dead Presidents" investigation, publishing prospectuses from Citigroup and UBS—the banks that marketed the securities in question—that aren't exactly heavy on the disclosure. Citi did not name... Continue reading
The Audit

At the WSJ, A Question of Trust
May 12, 2010 03:45 PM
"As News Corp. has consolidated its control of the paper they have increasingly come to demand enterprise journalism that serves the interest and viewpoints of the News Corp. management," Glenn Simpson said. "The upper ranks are now dominated by conservative... Continue reading
The Audit

WSJ: Feds Investigating Morgan Stanley CDOs
May 12, 2010 10:53 AM
Morgan Stanley is under criminal investigation for Abacus-like CDO deals, The Wall Street Journal scoops this morning, showing that the scandal is widening on Wall Street after several weeks of reports on investigations of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs.... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: Post’s Silver Medal, HAMPered, “The Iran Edition”
May 11, 2010 05:22 PM
The New York Post reported this weekend that regulators have criminal and civil investigations underway into possible manipulation of the silver market by JPMorgan Chase. The investigations stem from a story in The Post, which reported on a whistleblower... Continue reading
The Audit

The FT Stands By Its Moody’s Story, As It Should
May 11, 2010 02:53 PM
This morning I noted that a 2008 Financial Times story led to an SEC investigation of credit-ratings firm Moody's. I also noted that Moody's told McClatchy that an external investigation had "disproved" the paper's story, or at least its... Continue reading
The Audit

WSJ Stretches with Black-Swan Theory of the Crash
May 11, 2010 02:20 PM
A tried and true way to draw readers to your blog is to say something provocative in your headline and add a question mark. It's a red flag that what follows is typically speculation, but, hey, you've already got all... Continue reading
The Audit

The FT’s 2008 Moody’s Scoop Makes an Impact
May 11, 2010 11:21 AM
Let us now praise the Financial Times for its investigation of Moody's, which has now, at last, resulted in an SEC investigation of one of the credit-ratings firms at the heart of the financial crisis. Interesting how a little... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: “Populism” (Argh), Bush-Era Regulation, Tom Friedman
May 10, 2010 06:40 PM
Yves Smith has a good post on a longtime pet peeve of The Audit: Misuse of the word "populism." The first is a sharp uptick in criticism of “populism” or better yet, “populist anger”, which then serves as the... Continue reading
Behind the News

The HuffPost’s Business Reporting Shows the Site Maturing
May 10, 2010 12:07 PM
Let's get it out of the way up top that I think The Huffington Post is a mess—a schizophrenic, mostly unreadable hunk of tabloid journalism leavened with serious stuff. I mean, where else can you read a droning... Continue reading
The Audit

Audit Notes: Facebook Creeps, Apple and Ridicule, CDS Carnage
May 7, 2010 07:14 PM
As Facebook continues to steadily invade its users' privacy, it's been somewhat difficult to convey how exactly this has happened. The best thing I'd seen was the Electronic Frontier Foundation timeline of the site's privacy changes. But Matt... Continue reading
The Audit

Good WSJ Probe Shows Oil Regulator’s Capture
May 7, 2010 06:48 PM
The Wall Street Journal has a great investigation on Minerals Management Service, the regulator supposed to oversee oil drilling. The headline alone ought to make your blood boil: Regulator Ceded Oversight Of Rig Safety to Oil Drillers Great... Continue reading

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