Posts

You’ll Never Eat Lunch… A Review of “This Town” By Mark Leibovich

Mark Leibovich’s “This Town” is billed in the flap copy of the dust jacket as “a blistering, stunning —and often hysterically funny— examination of our ruling class’s incestuous ‘media industrial complex.’” Does anyone still eat lunch with him? In the new 24-7 news cycle, the half-life of any criticism of DC culture is about three days.

Be Skeptical — Reporters Caught Not Fact-Checking Private Company Numbers

“Auditor-turned-journalist Francine McKenna, writing at Medium, has some cautionary advice for journalists on reporting unaudited and unverified financial information.”

Deloitte And Wall Street Journal Exclusive For Sponsored Content

The Wall Street Journal has been accepting sponsored content, in an exclusive contract with Deloitte, for a while for its CFO Journal, CIO Journal and now a new publication, Risk & Compliance Journal. You may not have noticed. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between news and advertising.

Columbia Journalism Review Features McKenna On Roger Lowenstein

Ryan Chittum at the Columbia Journalism Review said some very nice things about my piece in Forbes on Roger Lowenstein and his “Wall Street: Not Guilty” piece.

2011 Loeb Award Application: Blogging

I thought some readers may find it interesting to see the applications I submitted for this years’ Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. The award is sponsored by UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Last year I was a finalist in the Blogging and Online Commentary Category. They’ve rearranged and added categories this year and so […]

Social Media Breakfast Chicago: How To Respond To Critical Bloggers

I’ve been asked me to lead a roundtable at the next Social Media Breakfast Chicago breakfast meeting, “How to engage with critical bloggers”. This event is sold out, but I promise to give you a report afterward.

Nowhere To Hide: Ernst & Young Looking At More Civil Liability For Lehman Failure

The mainstream media (MSM) is now paying attention to the Big 4 – Deloitte, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ernst & Young.

The financial crisis is now about accounting fraud.

Every two-bit journalist and blogger on the business beat is spitting out stories to keep up and one-up each other. It’s not every day that the accounting firms provide so much gossip about spectacular criminal and civil penalties. Well, actually, it is every day.

Financial Journalism and Its Discontents: Covering Auditors’ Role in the Crisis

Bloggers and other non-traditional media have the disadvantages, though, of fewer resources, no editor and the reputation for being irresponsible and scurrilous that we think is undeserved. The financial “blogosphere” acts as a collective editor, filtering out and demoting inaccurate unfair and irresponsible accounts, and promoting useful, inventive and original content in a collaborative way that mitigates each of our own limitations…”

Columbia Journalism Review Cites McKenna For Ernst & Young Lawsuit Coverage

CJR recently complimented my writing in Forbes on the New York Attorney General’s case against Ernst & Young over Lehman.

@Forbes: Forget Everyone Else – Why Aren’t Auditors Answering For Financial Crisis?

Some may say that tweaking New York Times reporters to make a point about auditor liability, especially one so prominent such as Andrew Ross Sorkin, may not be a great career move.  But then you’re assuming my idea of a “career” is yours. I call them as I see them, and the two blog posts in […]

re: The Auditors Mentioned In The Columbia Journalism Review

It’s been my great pleasure to get to know Ryan Chittum, the reporter for the Columbia Journalism Review’s (CJR) The Audit, a blog devoted to the critical look at business journalism. Ryan and I have not yet met in person, but  The Audit is a daily must read. I did have the opportunity to meet […]