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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged propublica

1. October 5, 2011 11:11 AM

   Annals of Government Toothlessness, HAMP edition

   ProPublica with a fantastic piece

   By Felix Salmon

   ProPublica’s Paul Kiel has a fantastic story about the way in which the government has proved utterly toothless with regard to auditing its mortgage-modification programs, never mind publicizing or enforcing whatever violations it did manage to find. HAMP, it turns out, is a perfect example of what happens when the government mandates change without enforcing it: huge amounts of...

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2. September 11, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: Bain’s LBOs, Star Tribune, Wolff on JRC

   ProPublica reports that the "turnaround artist" narrative is off

   By Ryan Chittum

   ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger looks at Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, calling into question the narrative that it was largely about turning around struggling businesses: Yet in addition, under Romney's tenure, Bain often sought out solid businesses that didn't need to be turned around. The reason: Such companies could operate under the burden of the enormous debt that Bain would layer...

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3. November 19, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: hustled, Brauchli fallout, NYT’s Walmart impact

   ProPublica connects the dots on a former Countrywide executive named in a DOJ lawsuit

   By Ryan Chittum

   ProPublica's Paul Kiel reports (with an assist from TheStreet) that the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of its program to pay foreclosure-scandal victims was implicated by the feds last month in their fraud case against Countrywide. The executive, Rebecca Mairone, worked at Countrywide and Bank of America from 2006 until earlier this year, when she left for JPMorgan Chase, according...

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4. June 13, 2012 07:57 PM

   Audit Notes: Jamie’s juice, a new Glass Steagall, U-T San Diego

   ProPublica documents JPMorgan Chase's extensive ties to a docile Senate Banking Committee

   By Ryan Chittum

   ProPublica has a sweet piece listing the connections between JPMorgan Chase and the Senate Banking Committee, which didn't exactly grill CEO Jamie Dimon in his appearance today. Many lawmakers are holding up the losses as evidence of the need for stronger financial regulation. The chairman of the Senate banking committee, Tim Johnson, D-S.D., in his opening remarks, asked for “a...

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5. October 26, 2012 06:50 AM

   Audit Notes: NYT scoop, Freddie’s anti-stimulus, Wired on making stuff

   Riches for the family of a top Chinese official

   By Ryan Chittum

   The New York Times David Barboza gets a huge scoop on corruption in China, reporting that the family of the country’s premiere, Wen Jiabao, is now worth billions of dollars and has tried to conceal its riches: Even so, the business dealings of Mr. Wen’s relatives have sometimes been hidden in ways that suggest the relatives are eager to avoid...

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6. January 28, 2011 06:06 PM

   Audit Notes: Politico’s Goldman PR, ProPublica Vindicated, Mark to Myth

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Huffington Post's Peter S. Goodman points to a bizarre report in Politico this morning: Much was made of a brief item in the FCIC report (pg. 378) alleging that Goldman Sachs took $2.9 billion for its own account from a bailed-out AIG. Goldman has long contended that around $14 billion it received from AIG went to clients and counterparties,...

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7. November 16, 2010 08:02 PM

   Audit Notes: ProPub vs. BofA, Wall Street in the White House, Short-Armed

   By Ryan Chittum

   I love to see the press just flat-out say somebody's full of it. ProPublica's Karen Weise does that today, calling out a Bank of America executive for testifying before Congress that it can't modify more mortgages because investors won't let it (it's worth noting that The New York Times this morning parroted the BofA line): Desoer’s testimony echoes what homeowners...

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8. April 18, 2011 08:30 PM

   Audit Notes: Pulitzer Edition

   By Ryan Chittum

   The financial crisis is now more than three years old, but up to now there had been no Pulitzer Prize awarded for reporting on how Wall Street's crucial role in creating the financial crisis. Now there has. ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won a much-deserved Pulitzer for National Reporting for their series on The Wall Street Money Machine, which...

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9. December 28, 2010 09:23 AM

   Best of 2010: Dean Starkman

   CJR's Kingsford Capital Fellow picks his top stories of the year

   By Dean Starkman

   The Hamster Wheel. Why running as fast as we can is getting us nowhere. The Hamster Wheel isn’t speed; it’s motion for motion’s sake. The Hamster Wheel is volume without thought. It is news panic, a lack of discipline, an inability to say no. It is copy produced to meet arbitrary productivity metrics, it’s live-blogging the opening ceremonies, and matching...

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10. March 22, 2011 02:46 PM

    More on Second Liens

    By Felix Salmon

    I had a long conversation with Jesse Eisinger on the subject of second liens and the proposed mortgage settlement from the state attorneys general. Second liens are clearly causing a huge problem in both the mortgage market and the banking market, as Mike Konczal clearly explains. They’re being held on banks’ books at what looks like extremely inflated values,...

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11. April 7, 2011 11:46 AM

    ProPublica and Fortune’s Unhelpful Post on GE’s Taxes

    Taking the company's word for it to rebut The New York Times

    By Ryan Chittum

    Fortune's Allan Sloan and ProPublica's Jeff Gerth asserted a couple of days ago that The New York Times got it wrong when it said GE paid no American tax last year. Fortune even gives it a Business Insider-style headline: "The truth about GE's tax bill." What's the truth they spent all these months digging up? The company says that it's...

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12. March 17, 2011 05:11 PM

    ProPublica and NYT Are Confusing On Second Liens (UPDATED)

    By Felix Salmon

    Jesse Eisinger has a conspiracy theory about the way that second liens are treated in the proposed mortgage settlement: The proposed agreement -- which is preliminary and subject to intense negotiations being led by Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa -- would allow banks to treat second mortgages, like home equity lines of credit, just like the first mortgages....

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13. April 19, 2011 10:45 AM

    ProPublica and How to Support Investigative Journalism

    By Felix Salmon

    Paul Steiger is rightly proud of his latest Pulitzer -- the second for ProPublica in as many years. He's right, too, that such things don't come cheap: One last point: to do this, it takes money. ProPublica is a non-profit, and contributions are tax deductible. We had more than 1300 donors last year and almost 500 so far this year....

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14. January 30, 2012 04:34 PM

    ProPublica and NPR on Freddie Mac’s Conflicts

    By Ryan Chittum

    Why haven't Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae been much more aggressive about refinancing the mortgages they hold? That's a $50 billion question. ProPublica and NPR have a $3.4 billion possible answer. Jesse Eisinger and Chris Arnold report that Freddie Mac has placed a huge bet that homeowners in its loans won't be able to refinance their mortgages. Around the same...

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15. July 27, 2011 08:33 PM

    ProPublica Catches Ally Financial Making It Up

    By Ryan Chittum

    ProPublica has a terrific report today nailing Ally Financial (the former GMAC) for faking mortgage documents in order to foreclose on a homeowner. Paul Kiel gets hold of internal documents that show Ally (ProPublica refers to it throughout as GMAC for some reason) wanted to foreclose on a mortgage originated by Ameriquest, but couldn't find the paperwork showing that it...

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16. October 21, 2011 01:30 PM

    ProPublica Has Questions for the SEC on Its Citi Settlement

    By Ryan Chittum

    I really like how ProPublica covers the SEC's $285 million settlement with Citigroup this week. The commission nicked Citi for selling CDOs it created to bet against—without telling the purchasers what it was doing. ProPublica reports the news, of course, but they also ask questions in their story to show potentially problematic issues that the SEC has left hanging. Jesse...

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17. April 22, 2012 05:28 PM

    ProPublica is fundraising with journo tees

    The investigative news outlet is selling shirts through Selfless Tee this week

    By Kira Goldenberg

    Love journalism enough to wear it? ProPublica is currently running a fundraising campaign on Selfless Tee, a San Francisco-based company that works with organizations to design and sell shirts. Then, they split the profits. For the next nine days, $22 (plus shipping and handling) can snag journo-geeks a gray t-shirt that reads “journalism with moral force,” designed around a cartoon...

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18. September 19, 2012 03:38 PM

    ProPublica reporter gets the Treme treatment

    The show's third season will feature a character based on A.C. Thompson

    By Sara Morrison

    A.C. Thompson's reporting on transgressions by the New Orleans police force in the wake of Hurricane Katrina led to an article in The Nation, a reporter position at ProPublica, three convictions (one since overturned) for the police officers involved in the murder of a man named Henry Glover, and, starting September 23, a character on HBO's Treme. Treme, written by...

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19. September 23, 2011 01:48 PM

    ProPublica Shines a Light on Secret Gerrymandering Money

    By Ryan Chittum

    Every ten years, politicians get together in statehouses and redraw congressional districts to squeeze their opponents and entrench themselves in power. And they get scads of corporate and union money (but mostly corporate money, it seems) to do it. Redistricting makes it extremely difficult to unseat some incumbents and effectively takes lots of elections out of the hands of voters....

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20. January 6, 2011 08:25 PM

    ProPublica Shows Merrill Paid Traders to Take Its CDOs

    An important story on how Wall Street kept the bubble going

    By Ryan Chittum

    I really hate when news organizations drop big stories over the holidays. For one, they have far less chance of making an impact when people are traveling and/or headfirst in the eggnog (for another: CJR shuts down for a glorious week and a half then). Last year, it was The New York Times dropping a big Goldman story on Christmas...

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