BW Oversells Its Story on Americans and Dirty Jobs

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2011 at 08:20 PM

This Bloomberg BusinessWork cover story from last week on "Why Americans Won't Do Dirty Jobs" takes an uneven look at... More

FT Style Undermines A Good Investigation

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 21, 2011 at 03:09 PM

The Financial Times has a good investigation today into how hedge funds are stocking their boards with directors in the... More

Audit Notes: Occupy Maybelline, Abramoff on the Revolving Door, News Corp. (UPDATED)

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 18, 2011 at 07:56 PM

The Occupy Wall Street movement is already having its dissent commodified. As BagNews shows, this Maybelline commercial shows its models... More

Skeptical and Not-So-Skeptical Coverage of Angie’s List

A hot IPO for a dot.com that loses tons of money

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 18, 2011 at 03:10 PM

Social media site Angie's List IPO'd yesterday, and the market now values it at nearly $900 million. While those are... More

Audit Notes: Net Exposure, Crain’s Chicago Probe, Angelo’s Tumblr

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 17, 2011 at 07:50 PM

Gillian Tett of the Financial Times shows why banks hedging their European exposure with credit-default swaps aren't necessarily actually hedged.... More

Nonprofit News and the Tax Man

The IRS questions whether journalism startups qualify for tax-exempt status

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 17, 2011 at 02:28 PM

The future of nonprofit news organizations has hit an unexpected roadblock in the agency that determines their tax-exempt status: The... More

Audit Notes: Fraud Prosecutions Plunge, Robber Barons, Zoning Fight

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 16, 2011 at 07:57 PM

Here's the chart of the day, from Syracuse's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse via The New York Times's Catherine Rampell: Prosecutions... More

Reuters On the “Payment Protection” Scam

Plus, an American Banker columnist’s predatory-lending past

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 16, 2011 at 01:35 PM

Reuters puts the spotlight on the scam that is the multi-billion-dollar credit-card insurance industry, which promises to cover payments if... More

Audit Notes: Farmland Booms, Regulation and Jobs, Euro Sell-off

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 15, 2011 at 07:24 PM

The Wall Street Journal reports that farming is making something of a comeback on the edges of metro areas amid... More

Confused NYT Coverage of Obama Health Care Law’s Prospects

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 15, 2011 at 04:59 PM

The New York Times can't make up its mind on what a Supreme Court ruling against Obama health care plan's... More

Bloomberg Gives Newt Another Frannie Headache

Executives contradict Gingrich’s account of his advice

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 15, 2011 at 03:57 PM

Newt Gingrich has a Frannie problem. The former Speaker of the House used to work for Freddie Mac but is... More

Insider Trading in Congress

A new book puts faces on data suggesting members enrich themselves with nonpublic information

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 14, 2011 at 07:35 PM

If I could short Congress, I would right now. Last night's 60 Minutes report, based on the work of conservative... More

The Times Eyes New Fees From the Banks

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 14, 2011 at 03:05 PM

Everybody who skipped Bank Transfer Day ought to read this New York Times story today on how giant banks are... More

Audit Notes: The Sovereign Risk Genie, Regulatory Complexity, Wal-Mart and Bank Fees

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 11, 2011 at 07:22 PM

The Economist's Greg Ip says the European crisis, at its core, is not about Silvio Berlusconi or even Italian debt... More

The Morning Call Revisits Amazon’s Work Conditions

Allentown workers baked in the summer, froze in the winter

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 11, 2011 at 03:48 PM

Remember that Morning Call investigation a couple of months ago into an Amazon sweatshop outside Allentown, Pennsylvania? The paper showed... More

Audit Notes: Guardian Editor on Hackgate, Judge Rakoff, Confidence Game

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 10, 2011 at 07:44 PM

Read Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger's Orwell lecture for an excellent overview and analysis of Murdoch's hacking scandal, and his paper's... More

The Big Lie of the Crisis, Called Out By the Press

The false “banks didn’t do it” meme takes hold on the right, as Romney showed last night

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 10, 2011 at 05:33 PM

At CNBC's GOP debate last night, Mitt Romney showed that he, like Michael Bloomberg, buys into the Big Lie of... More

Audit Notes: The Euro Crisis’s 1930s Parallels, Taibbi on Bloomberg

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 10, 2011 at 01:24 AM

The eurozone crisis is now at its worst point with Italy's interest rates at unsustainable rates and quite possibly past... More

NYT on How Unions Are Learning From Occupy Wall Street

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 9, 2011 at 01:41 PM

The New York Times reports on how the American labor movement, whose membership and power have crumbled over the last... More

Audit Notes: What Would Hammurabi Do?, WSJ + OWS, Fisking Davidson

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 8, 2011 at 08:01 PM

Nassim Nicholas Taleb doesn't pussyfoot around in his New York Times op-ed arguing that we should "End Bonuses for Bankers":... More