The Audit

02:24 PM - December 20, 2010

The WSJ Gives a Madoff the Soft Touch

Access and a celebrity-journalism-style puff piece

By Ryan Chittum

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Well put.

#1 Posted by Daniel Marrin, CJR on Mon 20 Dec 2010 at 06:06 PM

you are entitled to your opinion but your piece is just as sensational and cheap shot at Andrew Madoff. He may or may not be involved but anyone is entitled to find a way to live. The guy has lost his brother and it does not matter if WSJ gave a sympathetic piece it does not deter the fact that he will still be sued for crimes he may nor may not have committed. If it was true the sons had no idea of the crime of their father then they are just as much a victim as those people who lose money. Imagine being betrayed by your own father. I think people like you only reflects the narrowmindedness of you as a person.

#2 Posted by belinda, CJR on Mon 20 Dec 2010 at 06:50 PM

A newspaper's coverage of an issue should be multifaceted. In light of the recent suicide, the emotional consequence of the fraud in the Madoff family was an interesting and worthwhile facet. It seems like you are upset that this story was not a facile summary of the facts of the Madoff fraud. Everyone already knows those details, and the WSJ will continue to report new details of the sons' potential involvement in anything criminal. The WSJ isn't ignoring the possibility that the sons were complicit in Bernie's crimes; you yourself mentioned the story on B1. The Madoff saga is complicated, fascinating financial history unfolding in front of us. Not everyone who talks about it is willing to go on record. Maybe you'd be more comfortable with the simple outcomes and clear morality of Aesop's Fables.

#3 Posted by Nancy, CJR on Mon 20 Dec 2010 at 07:29 PM

Gail Wynand of The Banner would be proud of this story in the WSJ.

#4 Posted by Ralph, CJR on Mon 20 Dec 2010 at 09:21 PM

I guess the Bernie didn't snooker Rupert or any of the News Corps underlings. Until the members of the Fourth Estate, or should I say Fifth Column, suffer a direct loss of something of value they'll continue to produce such pap. One of my favorite quotations from the speeches made during the French Revolution touches upon this issue. "When will the people be educated? When they have enough bread to eat, when the rich and the government stop bribing treacherous pens and tongues to deceive them. When will this be? Never."

#5 Posted by Jack, CJR on Tue 21 Dec 2010 at 11:06 AM

Madoff Victims are being subjected to a secondary Ponzi Scheme and that one is with regards to the truth and who and why are the forces in the mainstream media protecting this man? There is something so deeply and fundamentally wrong with our society that members of the Madoff Crime Family who were part of the Inside Job are still walking around the Upper East Side, Tribeca, Greenwich, CT and Palm Beach (Ruth Madoff, Peter Madoff, Shana Madoff Swanson et. al etc) with access to most of their funds and use of multiple multi-million dollar residences while all those folks who pumped money in from feeder funds, like Walter Noel’s Fairifield Greenwich Group and Robert Jaffe's Comad, face bankruptcy, homelessness and long term financial insecurity. Then the further indignity of it all is that they have to bear witness to credible mainstream media journalists spending their precious time writing sympathetic profiles about how life is so difficult now for folks like cold hearted fraudster Andrew Madoff who has emerged as a veritable American Psycho as he relaxes and plans how to move on in life at his $4.4 Million luxury apartment at 433 East 74th Street on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side, while he cycles around Central Park and spends weekends at his Greenwich estate. Guess since it is the holiday season, the lives of the bankrupt, bordering on homeless average citizens who were ripped off by the Madoff Crime Family of International Financial Racketeers is not one which would bring much holiday cheer. This SOB Andrew Madoff, his mother Ruth Madoff and his cousin Shana Madoff Swanson should be in prison or worse. If the elites in our society ignore the symbolism of Madoffs free at large and walking around as if nothing has changed as they get on with their lives, it is only a matter of time before ‘Vigilante Justice’ will be more sternly administered by the people in the street. This WSJ piece is veritably obscene.

#6 Posted by Christopher London, CJR on Tue 21 Dec 2010 at 06:23 PM

Once again, the WJS has lost it' standards after the Murdoch acquistion. I read it once last motnh and haven't since. It's not what it was. But then again, no newspaper is. At least CJR, can point out how lousy WJS has become.
I would like to set a real piece on Madoff's niece, an attorney who ran the complaince dept at Madoff's firm and married the guy from the SEC who'se job it was to oversee the Madoff fund. Tell me how THEY didn't know.

#7 Posted by Christina Berry, CJR on Mon 3 Jan 2011 at 06:27 PM