Tnank you for sharing this illuminating post from your guest contributor, Eric Starkman. It is of great interest generally, on the subject of journalism, and of great interest particularly, to all of us in the blogosphere, as we watch (and to varying degrees, participate in) the continued evolution of journalism, including “citizen journalism,” print and online journalism, blogging, tweeting, et al.

With respect to the field of auditing, specifically, similar to commenter #1 above, I can also see some interesting parallels between some of the things being said about journalism these days, and things being said about auditors. For example, substitute “auditing” for “jouralism” and “auditors” for “journalists” in the blurb below, excerpted from the website of the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) (specifically, the “CCJ History” page: http://www.concernedjournalists.org/about_ccj/history ) an organization I learned of in your guest post above.

“On a rainy Saturday in June 1997, twenty-five journalists gathered at the Harvard Faculty Club. Around the long table sat editors of several of the nation’s top newspapers, as well as some of the most influential names in television and radio, several of the top journalism educators, and some of the country’s most prominent authors. They were there because they thought something was seriously wrong with their profession. They barely recognized what they considered journalism in much of the work of their colleagues. Instead of serving a larger public interest, they feared, their profession was damaging it.The public, in turn, increasingly distrusted journalists, even hated them. And it would only get worse.”

I think there have always been a range of views on the practical aspects of expecting auditors to fulfill a ‘public interest’ vs. fulfill a professional duty in terms of the work they provide, how they are compensated, by whom they are compensated, etc. And these issues are now seeping into the journalism field as well, in terms of decisions on erecting pay-per-view type firewalls by news organizations ranging from the NYT and FT to independent or quasi-independent bloggers, and what the role of ‘news organizations’ and ‘journalists’ are.

Thanks again for including this fascinating guest post in your blog, it is very interesting to read guest contributors among your always lively posts.

“the myriad factors that continue to erode its once-vaunted credibility. Chief among them is, of course, that the field is rife with unethical individuals who fabricate and plagiarize, a trend I wrote about last May.”..

Here I what I read from an article “What about Lehman’s auditor, Ernst & Young? In interviews with Valukas the firm essentially claims it did nothing wrong but that it only tacitly acquiesced in the Repo 105 accounting, agreeing with its theoretical construction but never evaluating or blessing actual transactions. Nor did Ernst & Young ever audit a Repo 105 transaction or assess the impact of the volume of them on the balance sheet. ”

“Agreeing with its theoretical construction but never evaluating or blessing actual transactions” – that is the best answer E&Y could come up with…

I am so sad I am in this industry…