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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Roddy Boyd

1. June 6, 2012 11:53 PM

   Audit Notes: Amazon turns on the A/C, Fairfax’s taxes, Ponzify

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Morning Call's Spencer Soper follows up on his Amazon sweatshop investigation, and reports that the company has since spent a whopping $52 million installing air conditioners in its warehouses: Donna Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at theUniversity of California, Riverside, said media exposure about working conditions likely prompted the investment. The company faces intense competition...

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2. August 30, 2011 07:53 PM

   Audit Notes: Boyd on Blackboard, Capitalism Lite, BofA Woes

   By Ryan Chittum

   There aren't a whole lot of investigative journalists out there covering penny stocks and other small-cap companies. Roddy Boyd does, though, and this weekend he posted a look at education-software company Blackboard Incorporated, which is selling itself for a nifty $1.65 billion to Providence Equity Partners. Boyd picks its business apart: When Blackboard’s business is carefully pulled apart, a very...

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3. November 30, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: pyramid people, Disney and ABC, no USA Today paywall

   Roddy Boyd digs into a diet-shake pyramid scheme

   By Ryan Chittum

   The investigative journalist Roddy Boyd has some excellent reporting on a multilevel marketing company (read: pyramid scheme) called ViSalus: ViSalus is a multilevel marketing company that promises ordinary folks a shot at financial success based solely on their skill at building a sales group that essentially draws on personal social circles: A distributor must recruit customers (usually starting with friends,...

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