The Audit

The Journal Misleads on McDonald’s and Obamacare

And it channels the wealthy-but-stingy employer’s cries of poverty

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 1, 2010 at 02:23 PM

The Wall Street Journal caused something of a to-do yesterday with its front-page story reporting that McDonald's might drop its... More

The Times Channels the Oil Lobby on Cuba

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 1, 2010 at 10:16 AM

The top story in The New York Times yesterday carried a bit of water for the oil and gas lobby.... More

Audit Notes: The Shark Submerges, Flack Jobs From Hell, Trial Balloons Popped

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 30, 2010 at 08:51 PM

Michael Lewis plays the "Jaws" theme in his BusinessWeek column asking why Wall Street fought tooth and nail for an... More

Crisis Warning Lights Are Blinking Red Again

Europe’s sovereigns worsen again, currency devalutions threaten a downward spiral, and more.

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 30, 2010 at 05:58 PM

Things are getting ugly again in Europe, with multiple nations teetering toward default. Nations are beginning to play beggar-thy-neighbor with... More

Accountability Icelandic Style

Politicians in the dock for the financial crisis

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 30, 2010 at 10:49 AM

What's the difference between Iceland and us? Well, there's the rotten shark meat, the leaving babies outside unattended in freezing... More

Audit Notes: The Damage Done, GOP Economics, Pittman Bests Bernanke

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 29, 2010 at 07:56 PM

Now this is a correction. The Wall Street Journal this morning (emphasis mine): Singer Neil Young was born Nov. 12,... More

Seeking a Media Critic

By Dean Starkman   Sep 29, 2010 at 03:00 PM

CJR is looking for an experienced journalist to be its Peterson Fellow, a part-time job blogging about and critiquing media... More

This Gold “Record” Keeps Skipping

The Journal and others fail to account for thirty years of inflation

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 29, 2010 at 11:53 AM

The Wall Street Journal goes page one with a misleading story about gold, splashing this headline across four columns atop... More

Audit Notes: Illegal Immigrant Costs, E-books, Curmudgeons

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 28, 2010 at 06:47 PM

(UPDATE: I misread this WSJ post. The Rand analyst was actually talking about all immigration, legal and illegal. The Journal... More

Access As Distortion Field

Facebook author spins for the company in the Washington Post

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 28, 2010 at 12:23 PM

Fortune's David Kirkpatrick, author of a new book on Facebook, an excerpt of which I criticized a while back for... More

Audit Notes: Why No Charges?, ABC on Collections, SEC Whiff

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2010 at 08:17 PM

I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure I can argue against this statement, by law prof Peter J. Helling, who... More

A Scalpel We Can Believe In

Obama’s antitrust regime and the proposed Comcast/NBC merger

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2010 at 06:32 PM

If you want to poke another hole in the idea that the Obama administration is "anti-business" take a look at... More

A Critical Witness in the Wall Street Sausage Factory

Banks used Clayton’s quality-assurance info to make more money, investors be damned

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2010 at 11:52 AM

Chalk this one up to things I'm not smart enough to understand: Why isn't this pure-D fraud and why hasn't... More

Of Hamsters and Values

Reply to Felix Salmon

By Dean Starkman   Sep 27, 2010 at 11:13 AM

“The Hamster Wheel,” my argument against news organizations’ cranked-up productivity requirements for reporters, generated some nice discussion, including a post... More

Audit Notes: Free Trade Fallout, China’s Peg, Bailout Failure

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 24, 2010 at 06:49 PM

The Financial Times's Washington bureau chief Edward Luce—who if you ask me, is one of the sharpest Washington observers around... More