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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author
Commercialization of the academy: diet supplements edition
The LAT’s Hiltzik on professors who hawk Herbalife
By Ryan Chittum Feb 27, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Herbalife story is a business-press feast. You've got warring billionaires, the words "Ponzi scheme" being thrown around, a televised... More
Fortune on the French
France’s “unproductive labor force” is, in fact, quite productive
By Ryan Chittum Feb 26, 2013 at 11:22 AM
The abrasive tire CEO Maurice Taylor made news last week when he lashed out at French workers as "lazy" good-for-nothings.... More
Audit Notes: Seattle paywall, private equity taxes, mortgage security fraud
The Seattle Times will charge online readers beginning next month
By Ryan Chittum Feb 25, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Seattle Times is the latest paper to join the paywall movement. It looks like it's basically copying The New... More
An eye on the Times-Picayune’s numbers
Some questions about what executives say are positive circulation trends
By Ryan Chittum Feb 22, 2013 at 03:00 PM
We'll have a long story on the Times-Picayune next week, but Publisher Ricky Mathews and Editor Jim Amoss released some... More
Audit Notes: Hank the hero, Des Moines, Norwegian wood
The FT’s John Gapper reviews the former AIG CEO’s autobiography
By Ryan Chittum Feb 21, 2013 at 06:50 AM
John Gapper's Financial Times review of the new Hank Greenberg (the disgraced former AIG CEO, not the All Star baseball... More
The Boston Globe, up for sale again
The Times goes all in on the Times
By Ryan Chittum Feb 20, 2013 at 05:35 PM
Back in 1993, The New York Times Company bought the Globe for about $1.8 billion (adjusted for inflation). Four years... More
The New York Times and the rehabilitation of Steven Rattner
A monthly column not enough, the fallen former NYTer now gets the Sorkin treatment
By Ryan Chittum Feb 20, 2013 at 03:00 PM
The New York Times is declaring that disgraced private equity mogul Steven Rattner has gotten his reputation back in the... More
Audit Notes: scoops and leaks, CNBC hardball, FT on Dow Jones CEO
The WSJ sniffs at a USA Today exclusive on Obama’s immigration plan
By Ryan Chittum Feb 20, 2013 at 06:50 AM
It's totally a shoe-leather scoop when you get the story. It's a "leak" when somebody else does. That's what The... More
Audit Notes: due diligence, Elizabeth Warren, the Murdoch way
More evidence from private lawsuits on unprosecuted bank executives
By Ryan Chittum Feb 19, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Seattle Times follows last week's reports on Dexia's lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase of fraud for its mortgage activities during... More
Amazon’s German labor fiasco
A subcontractor employed neo-Nazi guards to patrol immigrant workers
By Ryan Chittum Feb 18, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The story of Amazon's treatment of workers took a sensational turn last week when German public television revealed that temporary... More
Rubio and the Big Lie of the Crisis
The press fails to push back on the senator’s SOTU response whopper
By Ryan Chittum Feb 15, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Big Lie of the Crisis keeps rearing its ugly head. The latest spotting: Senator Marco Rubio's response to Obama's... More
Audit Notes: The FT does labor reporting, minimum wage, OC Register
An excellent look inside an Amazon warehouse in the UK
By Ryan Chittum Feb 13, 2013 at 11:00 AM
The Financial Times has an excellent story on the dystopian work culture at Amazon warehouses: Inside, hundreds of people in... More
The NYT’s newspaper industry rarity: growth (UPDATED)
Its circulation strategy, led by the paywall, more than offsets ad losses in 2012
By Ryan Chittum Feb 12, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The New York Times's landmark metered paywall will be two years old next month, and it's already successful beyond anyone's... More
Audit Notes: Libor Rain Man, fraud without fraudsters, George Will on TBTF
The Journal spotlights an RBS banker at the center of the scandal
By Ryan Chittum Feb 11, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The Wall Street Journal's David Enrich has some great reporting on Tom Hayes, the RBS banker at the center of... More
Audit Notes: Wall Street fraud and coverup
JPMorgan “flouted quality controls and ignored problems, sometimes hiding them entirely”
By Ryan Chittum Feb 8, 2013 at 06:50 AM
The New York Times has a tough report on newly uncovered emails that show Jamie Dimon's JPMorgan Chase knowingly misled... More
Morgenson rebuts the Geithner hosannas
The Treasury Secretary’s legacy in context
By Ryan Chittum Feb 6, 2013 at 06:50 AM
There's been an unsettling amount of hagiography in the last few weeks as top Obama financial regulatory officials departed and... More
Bloomberg unearths an Italian bank scandal
Its story reverberates across Europe
By Ryan Chittum Feb 5, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Back in mid-January, Bloomberg's Elisa Martinuzzi and Nicholas Dunbar reported that Deutsche Bank helped Italy's third-largest bank, Monte Paschi, cover... More
Audit Notes: the anti-liquidation newspaper model, NYT on digital media doings
Ken Doctor spotlights Aaron Kushner’s investment at the OC Register
By Ryan Chittum Feb 4, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Ken Doctor has a fantastic post up at the Nieman Lab on the Orange County Register, which has actually been... More
China hacks the press
While the FBI probed whether it gave some traders an early look at government data
By Ryan Chittum Feb 1, 2013 at 06:50 AM
Yesterday The New York Times ran this remarkable story about how Chinese hackers, presumably aligned with the military, hacked into... More
Frontline hits hard on the lack of crisis prosecutions
And a top DOJ official resigns the next day
By Ryan Chittum Jan 31, 2013 at 06:50 AM
We'd be remiss to not flag Frontline's outstanding investigation into the shameful failure of the Obama administration to pursue, much... More
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
Obama’s war on leaks undermines investigative journalism
“[T]he most militant I have seen since the Nixon administration”
‘It was approved at the highest levels— and I mean the highest’
Holder OK’d search warrant for Fox News reporter’s private emails, official says
If cable is dying, why is it still making so much money?
The story behind one of the best business models in the country
What TVGuide.com watchlist data reveals about the season’s new dramas
“What was once genre is now the Zeitgeist”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
