Consider Sponsoring This Site or Conference Coverage
By Francine • Aug 31st, 2010 • Category: Pure Content, Where I've BeenI’ve been writing the story of the Big 4 audit firms – PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young for more than four years. This specialized news site, re: The Auditors, provides updates, opinion, analysis and original investigative reporting on the role, responsibilities and regulation of the audit/accounting industry in the global capital markets.
The Big 4 auditors are under a harsh spotlight as a result of the Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s report, litigation against the banks for warranties and representations regarding the mortgages they made and mortgage securities they packaged, growing subprime litigation against auditors themselves, the Madoff scandal, Satyam fraud, and inside trading convictions/sanctions against audit partners.
The auditors have finally been asked, by regulators and shareholders, about their role during the financial crisis and their involvement in the frauds and fabulous valuations leading up to it.
This site is seeing record traffic and consistent and repeat interaction with readers, academics, media critics, and other journalists.
My twice weekly column for Forbes.com, “Accounting Watchdog”, generates interest in this site and thousands of referrals each month. One of my most recent posts, about Bank of America’s woes and the complicity of their auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers in furthering them, is now my most popular post there. Readers were connected to re: The Auditors and previous posts about the banks, PwC, repurchase risk, and litigation contingency disclosure.
Did you see my OpEd in Boston Review on Dodd-Frank and the lessons we can learn about regulatory enforcement from Sarbanes-Oxley?
Did you hear me on Austrailian National Radio program Background Briefing talking about the audit industry, their global networks, and the litigation the firms are facing all over the world?
Last May I covered the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. It was quite an experience!
Last January I moderated a program at the New York State CPA Society on “Whistleblowers under Dodd-Frank“. The panel included:
- Sherron Watkins, the Enron Whistleblower.
- Marion E. Koenigs, Deputy Director, Accountant, Division of Enforcement and Investigations, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
- Paul Atkins, Managing Director, Patomak Partners and former Commissioner for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Did you see my quote in the New York Times regarding Lehman and their SIV Hudson Castle? It was the most popular story that day and generated enormous traffic to this site.
Or maybe you saw my quote in the print and online edition of Business Week on Anton Valukas, the Lehman bankruptcy examiner or on Senator Ted Kaufman, one of the members of the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigation. I wrote about the recent Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs and my coverage was mentioned positively in the Columbia Journalism Review.
In May of 2010, I was named a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in the online commentary and blogging category.
A Crisis of Our Own Design, was a program sponsored by the New York County Lawyers Association, on September 15th, 2010. I was a panelist with Floyd Norris (New York Times) and Anton Valukas, the Lehman bankruptcy examiner. One of my most popular posts, “Top Ten Things Lawyers Should Know About Auditors”, was written in preparation for this event.
Take a look at Where I’ve Been.
Would your firm like to sponsor this site or my coverage of upcoming events such as:
- Financial Executives International’s Annual Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference is held in New York, New York in November. I hope to cover the conference for this site. This will be my fourth year with a press pass.
- Compliance Week will hold their Annual Conference June 4-6th in Washington DC. This will be my sixth year covering the conference. There have been many significant stories and scoops for this site as a result of my presence and engagement with the always star-studded group of speakers. I’m looking forward to another year with many friends and corporate governance/compliance colleagues.
- Full service accounting and consulting firm Porter Keadle Moore, LLP will again sponsor a Fraud and Forensic Accounting Education Conference in conjunction with the Center For Forensic Studies in Accounting at Georgia Southern University. The next conference will be held May 15-17, 2011 in Savannah, Georgia. Last year I spoke on the topic, “The Skeptical Professional.”
Please call or write for more information about sponsoring this site, conference or event coverage or speaking at your event.
fmckenna@mckennapartners.com
Francine is
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Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. Look for my column, 
Smaller cities and smaller firms with industry niches value prior...
This is just awful. You have lost all objectivity. And you call yourself a “journalist”
@anonymous
I have never called myself a “journalist.’ Others do, but I do not have the NYT or WSJ to pay my salary. I know my limitations. So I have to support myself. I have always fully disclosed sponsors or any monetary support for this site. Are you a subscriber? Do you pay for this? Have I mandated payment? Read my disclaimer.
http://76.12.174.187/Disclaimer/
I have to agree with anonymous. “Look at me” is not a useful post. I just have to figure out how to unsubscribe.
@Anon 2.0 Please do. If you can not support what I need to do to keep posting “useful” information, then move along.
I am not sure this is reaching out to your intended audiance. Perhaps contacting different firms respective public relations department would be more effective.
The comments here seem rather harsh. This is not a question of “journalistic integrity” unless the writer allows sponsorship to influence her writing or she provides undue “favorable coverage” for advertisers, which is not what is stated nor offered.
@1@3 is this a joke?
Hey, unless you subscribe you don’t have standing to have a beef with this. Blogs work by getting sponsors or advertising, just like newspapers and magazines.
Francine is one of the few people who cover the shenanigans the Big 4 pull. I value her service and I wish all of us would subscribe enough to prevent her from needing such coverage.