Author Archive
Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author
Opening Bell: Ax Falls At Lehman
Prez and CFO demoted, CEO may be next; KeyCorp cuts dividend; Zell loses publisher; more trouble for AIG; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 13, 2008 at 08:00 AM
Heads rolled at Lehman Brothers as the Wall Street bank took action to restore its tattered credibility after a brutal... More
Opening Bell: Are Your Chemicals Safe?
New Euro regs push U.S; will the Belgians brew Bud?; fugitive CEO living large in Namibia; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 12, 2008 at 07:29 AM
The Washington Post on A1 writes that a tough new European law regulating the chemical industry is affecting the way... More
Opening Bell: Bernanke Talks Tough on Inflation
Says developing countries can do more; Libor reform lite; Sam Israel’s suicide solution; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 11, 2008 at 07:58 AM
Inflation is the topic du jour at The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Financial Times this morning. The... More
Opening Bell: Lehman’s Big Loss
Second-quarter hit a sign o’ the times; corporate ‘golden coffins’; a dark side of free trade; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 10, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Lehman Brothers troubles deepened as it projected it would lose $2.8 billion in the second quarter—far more than already dour... More
Opening Bell: New Fronts in the Credit Crunch
FT and WSJ make predictions; gas prices crushing rural poor; about that AOL whistleblower; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 9, 2008 at 07:37 AM
The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal pull out their crystal balls to predict what the credit crunch will... More
Opening Bell: The Incredible Shrinking Tribune
Zell slashes pages, people; foreclosures gone wild; UBS ready to sing; AIG faces criminal investigation; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 6, 2008 at 07:57 AM
The Tribune Company is slashing its papers’ newshole and employees in a bid to stay afloat under its staggering debt.... More
Opening Bell: Bond Insurers Headed South
Moody’s set to downgrade MBIA, Ambac; kinder, gentler Wal-Mart; bizarre doings at the FCC; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 5, 2008 at 07:21 AM
Prospects of another downturn in the credit crisis continued to increase, this time on an old standby: a credit-ratings firm... More
Opening Bell: Will Americans Drop the SUV?
Carmakers think so; GM may unload Hummer; WaPo’s hyperlocal Web site experiment bombs; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 4, 2008 at 07:26 AM
(Sub-headline corrected on 6/8/08) The nation’s car market continued to suffer from high gas prices, with sales tumbling 11 percent... More
Opening Bell: Ken Thompson Kicked To Curb
Wachovia says, No mas!; Lehman loss is coming; where are they now: Dick Grasso; Google angers big advertisers; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 3, 2008 at 07:35 AM
Wachovia dumped its CEO Ken Thompson after a series of bad moves over the last few years culminated in a... More
Opening Bell: Credit Crunch Hits Poor Students
Want a loan for community college? Good luck; foreclosures are rolling; NYT Company’s fat dividend; etc.
By Ryan Chittum Jun 2, 2008 at 07:39 AM
The New York Times says the credit crunch is hitting students at two-year colleges and “other less competitive institutions” as... More
Opening Bell: Oil Slicks
As prices soar, U.S. looks for scapegoats; UBS ready to roll over; Jimmy Cayne, pariah; Rachael Ray, jihadi; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 30, 2008 at 07:54 AM
The U.S. said it is investigating whether soaring oil prices are being unfairly manipulated, the papers report. The Wall Street... More
Opening Bell: Lying About Libor
Journal calls out banks on distortion; free wireless for all?; the back story of $2 a share for Bear; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 29, 2008 at 07:30 AM
The Wall Street Journal uses an interesting bit of enterprise reporting to suggest on A1 which banks are lying about... More
Opening Bell: About That Loan…
Investors want lenders to take back loans; home sales up but also down; choking the brokers, etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 28, 2008 at 07:27 AM
The Wall Street Journal reports that a growing number of investors, including big companies, are trying to force companies that... More
Debits & Credits: the FT Investigates
Welcome to the fight, FT; Awol on Ranieri; counter-intuition discharge, etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 27, 2008 at 09:55 AM
A Credit to the Financial Times for a rare investigative piece, a well-executed probe into a bungled debt rating by... More
Opening Bell: Bear Stearns Saga, In Three Acts
Journal says firm could have saved itself; housing bargains; car trouble; truckers feel the pain; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 27, 2008 at 07:16 AM
The Wall Street Journal kicks off a three-part series on “The Fall of Bear Stearns” with a story, accompanied by... More
Opening Bell: Don’t Like Your Credit Rating?
Moody’s, S&P will fix it; Amtrak’s moment; “short squeeze” in oil market; domestic drillers want more; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 23, 2008 at 08:03 AM
The Wall Street Journal on its Money & Investing cover looks at another shady practice of the credit-ratings firms—switching out... More
Opening Bell: Happy Summer Driving!
Oil inventories down, prices up; air travel to get much worse; time to pull Pfizer’s antismoking drug?; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 22, 2008 at 07:30 AM
The price of oil continues to rise like an uncapped gusher, soaring 3.3 percent to more than $133 a barrel... More
Opening Bell: Thomson Atop Journal
On its way to being just another newspaper; military thinks green; small cities, no flights; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 21, 2008 at 07:37 AM
In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, Rupert Murdoch installed his pal Robert Thomson as the top editor... More
Opening Bell: Is Housing Bill Tough Enough?
May not ‘put a floor’ under the market; stimulus checks have little impact; former AOL execs indicted; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 20, 2008 at 07:44 AM
The Senate finally nailed down a deal on a housing bill, something The Wall Street Journal deems worthy of page... More
Opening Bell: Banks’ Creative Accounting
It’s all legal, and yet…; trouble in dairy land; Microsoft and Yahoo, round II; Chinese workers stay home; etc.
By Ryan Chittum May 19, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Bloomberg says banks are “hiding” more than $35 billion in losses in (not so) plain sight. The wire service in... More
Woman’s work - The twisted reality of an Italian freelancer in Syria
Sourcing Trayvon Martin ‘photos’ from stormfront - Not a good idea, Business Insider
Elizabeth Warren, the antidote to CNBC - The senator schools the talking heads on bank regulation
Art Laffer + PR blitz = press failure - The media types up the retail lobby’s propaganda
Reuters’s global warming about-face - A survey shows the newswire ran 50 percent fewer stories on climate change after hiring a “skeptic”
Barack Obama: ‘those old times aren’t coming back’
“It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper”
The Guardian’s editor opens up on Reddit
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, answered questions in an Ask Me Anything
The (almost) lost speech of Justice Anthony Kennedy
How his insightful remarks about the Constitution inadvertently make the case for a Supreme Court “media pool”
Fox News sues TVEyes for copyright infringement
Says subscription service sells access to its content without permission nor compensation
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
ACEsTooHigh.com – Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
