The Audit

McClatchy Misses on Cotton Speculators

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 30, 2011 at 07:15 PM

McClatchy investigates doings in the cotton market, which like other commodities has been roiled by volatility in recent years largely... More

Audit Notes: WSJ’s Facebook Non-News, Bogus Bloomberg, Tabloid Id

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 29, 2011 at 11:54 PM

Fortune's Dan Primack calls out The Wall Street Journal for hyping non-news on page one that Facebook is going to... More

Bloomberg’s Big Paulson Scoop

The former Treasury secretary told the public one thing while telling select traders another

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 29, 2011 at 07:21 PM

Bloomberg Markets reports that in July 2008 then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told a meeting of big investors, including several fellow... More

Audit Notes: Radicalized, Nonprofit Newt, Murdoch’s Wedding Singer

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 28, 2011 at 07:56 PM

Kevin Drum riffs off Bloomberg Markets story on banks' bailout profits to write about how the response to the crash... More

Bloomberg Leads on the Fed (Again)

The consequences of the central bank’s secrecy

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 28, 2011 at 03:12 PM

Bloomberg is still, thank God, hammering away at the gargantuan bank bailouts of 2008-2009. Most of those were hidden from... More

The Turkey-Inflation Goblin

Supply and demand is lost on the WSJ editorial page

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 23, 2011 at 02:08 PM

Speaking of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, its Opinion Journal Live is looking for signs of runaway inflation to... More

A Columnist Recants, but the WSJ Edit Page Won’t Hear it

The paper runs a flawed column and declines to publish the retraction

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 23, 2011 at 11:39 AM

A year and a half ago, George Mason University economics professor Daniel B. Klein wrote a column about his finding... More

Hudson On the Systemic Corruption of the Mortgage Business

By Ryan Chittum   Nov 22, 2011 at 02:03 PM

The Center for Public Integrity Michael Hudson has another excellent installment of his investigation into the culture of fraud at... More

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