The Audit

Wichita Eagle Eyes Regulatory Cracks Before a Failure

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 5, 2011 at 05:47 PM

Here's a solid Wichita Eagle report that shows the holes in a regulatory system—ones that could have deadly consequences. What... More

Annals of Government Toothlessness, HAMP edition

ProPublica with a fantastic piece

By Felix Salmon   Oct 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM

ProPublica’s Paul Kiel has a fantastic story about the way in which the government has proved utterly toothless with... More

Cronyism and Executive Compensation

A Washington Post examination of how “peers” inflate CEO pay

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 4, 2011 at 02:07 PM

Companies tend to try to pay their employees as little as possible without killing morale and suffering high turnover. But... More

Memoirs of a Markets Reporter

Readers demand an explanation for why markets go up and down. But sometimes, nobody really knows.

By Chao Deng   Oct 3, 2011 at 12:20 PM

When reading a typical stock-market story, one that says something like, “Futures Gain Ahead of Obama Jobs Plan,” did you... More

The Negative Correlation Between Obesity and Indebtedness

By Felix Salmon   Oct 3, 2011 at 08:59 AM

Michael Lewis says something very odd in his big piece on California and the phenomenon of overconsumption: The succession... More

Business Insider and Over-Aggregation

By Felix Salmon   Sep 30, 2011 at 09:32 AM

Henry Blodget has a long and detailed response to Marco Arment, which is fascinating to anybody interested in the nuts... More

A Frustrating AP Series on Nuclear Safety

The industry’s blunder-buss response doesn’t help; public left confused

By Irene M. Wielawski   Sep 28, 2011 at 01:40 AM

Editor's note: This is an installment of our Audit Arbiter series, which looks into complaints about business news stories.... More

Audit Notes: The Costs of Trade, WSJ Op-Ed Page, Frontier Days

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 07:53 PM

The Wall Street Journal covers an MIT study that found the downsides of trade with China have been worse than... More

How Not to Cover Your Paper’s New Owner

The Oklahoman glosses over Philip Anschutz’s political activism

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 06:34 PM

The Oklahoman recently profiled Philip Anschutz, who bought the paper from the Gaylord family, which had owned it for 108... More

Boom Towns Amid the Bust

NPR finds “man camps” and $1,200 parking spaces in North Dakota

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 12:20 PM

This paragraph jumps out from an NPR's All Things Considered report on an oil boom town in North Dakota: Two... More

LAT On Why Solyndra Dazzled the Private and Public Sectors

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 26, 2011 at 06:23 PM

The Los Angeles Times has a really good look at the failure of Solyndra, the solar-power company that went bankrupt... More

The Morning Call’s Amazon Sweatshop Probe

An excellent investigation exposes poor conditions at a big Pennsylvania warehouse

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 23, 2011 at 07:52 PM

What's going on with labor in Pennsylvania? It was just last month that foreign students working at Hershey's for the... More

ProPublica Shines a Light on Secret Gerrymandering Money

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 23, 2011 at 01:48 PM

Every ten years, politicians get together in statehouses and redraw congressional districts to squeeze their opponents and entrench themselves in... More

ESPN Obscures Its Own Role in the Conference Realignment Mess

The network’s $300 million deal with Texas, at the heart of the news, goes almost unmentioned

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 22, 2011 at 06:34 PM

If you cover college sports for ESPN, you've got a real problem right now. The biggest story these days is... More

The Countrywide Fraud Machine

Michael Hudson tallies up dozens of allegations that executives retaliated against whistleblowers

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 22, 2011 at 12:28 PM

The Center for Public Integrity's Michael Hudson, who's done as much as any journalist—both before and after the crash—to expose... More