Mostly Muddled Coverage of the Housing Market

By Ryan Chittum   May 21, 2010 at 05:50 PM

How optimistic should we be about the housing market? After reading press coverage of April's mortgage stats, you'd be forgiven... More

The Journal Reveals Another Facebook Privacy Gaffe

By Ryan Chittum   May 21, 2010 at 11:30 AM

The Wall Street Journal gets a nice Facebook/MySpace privacy scoop this morning, reporting that the sites—particularly Facebook—send along personal-identification information... More

Audit Notes: A-hed Hed, Deflation, BW or BBW?

By Ryan Chittum   May 20, 2010 at 07:42 PM

Headline of the Week goes to The Wall Street Journal for this A-hed: In England, Buying the Farm Can Be... More

All the Banks in Georgia

Small-bank failures are child’s play in a too-big-to-fail world

By Ryan Chittum   May 20, 2010 at 01:46 PM

It's a good idea to point out that small banks are failing, too. This is hardly a news flash, but... More

Audit Notes: Not-So-Goldman Advice, One Source Stories, Facebook

By Ryan Chittum   May 19, 2010 at 09:43 PM

Bloomberg reports that even though Goldman Sachs, along with other banks, won on every day at the dog tracks last... More

Tribune Investigation Finds Mercury-Laced Skin Creams

By Ryan Chittum   May 19, 2010 at 09:07 PM

A terrific investigation today by the Chicago Tribune discovered high levels of mercury in skin-whitening creams on shelves across Chicago.... More

The New York Times’s Devastating Goldman Piece

Morgenson and Story unload on the bank’s conflicted business model

By Ryan Chittum   May 19, 2010 at 11:18 AM

The New York Times goes long on the conflict machine that is Goldman Sachs. It's a devastating synthesis of what's... More

Audit Notes: WSJ Win, Tully Calls a Crash, Sugar Shock

By Ryan Chittum   May 18, 2010 at 08:20 PM

The Wall Street Journal has been doing solid work on the BP/Transocean oil spill, and today's paper has another good... More

Fortune Sounds Out of Tune With a Facebook Piece

By Ryan Chittum   May 18, 2010 at 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... More

Watching the Banking Canaries in the Coal Mine

By Ryan Chittum   May 18, 2010 at 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... More

Audit Notes: WaPo on a Whistleblower, Analysts, Reshuffled Toxic Assets Still Toxic

By Ryan Chittum   May 17, 2010 at 07:14 PM

— The Washington Post ran a terrific piece yesterday on UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld yesterday, a flawed hero (aren't they... More

Oklahoman Columnist Strikes Out

Softball, stereotypes, and straw

By Ryan Chittum   May 17, 2010 at 03:24 PM

Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman devotes an entire column to what I and a couple of others said last week... More

Audit Notes: Some Ads Up; Mr., Mrs., Messrs.; Visualize Your Music Purchase

By Ryan Chittum   May 14, 2010 at 07:06 PM

Happy days are here again. Well, not really. But magazine ads are up (in the monthly-mag category anyway) 5 percent... More

Spotty Coverage of the Financial Reform Amendments

By Ryan Chittum   May 14, 2010 at 01:14 PM

The Senate has been adding tough amendment after tough amendment to the financial-reform bill. Okay, tougher than anybody thought they... More

Audit Notes: Covering Investigations, the iPad Browser Threat, Rome

By Ryan Chittum   May 13, 2010 at 06:05 PM

ProPublica managing editor Stephen Engelberg has some good thoughts on how the press covers investigations, noting all the stories coming... More

The Press Misleads on a Gold “Record”

In real dollars it’s barely half the 1980 price

By Ryan Chittum   May 13, 2010 at 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... More

Pushing Back Against Facebook’s Privacy Practices

The press and others bring needed new scrutiny to the social network

By Ryan Chittum   May 13, 2010 at 11:53 AM

The press has begun an overdue backlash against Facebook, whose privacy invasions have grown increasingly brazen as its user base... More

Audit Notes: ProPublica’s Dead Prez Prospectuses; Citi and Deutsche, Too; Michael Lewis

By Ryan Chittum   May 12, 2010 at 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... More

At the WSJ, A Question of Trust

The real issue in the Kagan softball dustup: The paper has lost credibility in the Murdoch era

By Ryan Chittum   May 12, 2010 at 03:45 PM

"As News Corp. has consolidated its control of the paper they have increasingly come to demand enterprise journalism that serves... More

WSJ: Feds Investigating Morgan Stanley CDOs

By Ryan Chittum   May 12, 2010 at 10:53 AM

Morgan Stanley is under criminal investigation for Abacus-like CDO deals, The Wall Street Journal scoops this morning, showing that the... More