Financial crisis coverage dominates Loeb Awards

Financial crisis coverage dominates Loeb Awards
New York Times wins 3 Loeb Awards for business journalism, struggling McClatchy gets 3 honors


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- McClatchy & Co., one of the companies hardest hit by the crisis in the newspaper industry, was honored Monday for its coverage of the economic meltdown.
The Loeb Awards, among the highest honors in business journalism, have been presented for 36 years by Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles. They were established in 1957 by Gerald Loeb, a financier and founding partner of E.F. Hutton, to encourage quality reporting in business, finance and the economy.

Even as media companies struggle with a chronic decline in advertising revenue, made worse by the recession, they continued to put resources towards investigative journalism in covering the biggest economic and business story of the past 70 years. A number of award recipients spoke of being given a year or more to travel to big cities and small towns across the U.S. to write stories of abusive mortgage practices and other financial misdeeds.

The New York Times, which received three Loeb Awards, was honored for "The Reckoning," a 19-part account of who and what was to blame for the financial crisis. Lawrence Ingrassia, business and financial editor at The New York Times and the driving force behind the series, received the Lawrence Minard Editor Award.

In accepting the honor, Ingrassia said the current era hearkens "back to the 1930's, not because we're in a depression, but because it's increasingly incumbent on the press to be the watchdog."

The New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson, who co-authored "The Reckoning" with eight colleagues, also won a Loeb Award in the beat writing category for her coverage of the follies of Wall Street.

She shared that win with Rick Rothacker of McClatchy publication The Charlotte Observer, who was recognized for anticipating how adjustable rate mortgages would topple Charlotte, N.C.-based bank Wachovia Corp. and ultimately force its takeover by Wells Fargo & Co. That newspaper also received an Honorable Mention for its investigative series on the poultry industry, "The Cruelest Cuts."

The Miami Herald, another former Knight Ridder publication now owned by McClatchy, was recognized in the medium and small newspapers category for "Borrowers Betrayed," which chronicled Florida's failure to prevent convicted felons from working in the state's mortgage industry and bilking lenders and borrowers out of millions of dollars. Read more... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Financial-crisis-coverage-apf-3992981568.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=

Michael Jackson's Legacy

Michael Jackson's Legacy
6/25/2009

With all the turmoil in his personal life, it is easy to forget that Michael Jackson was once the biggest pop star in the world. Fox News' Dan Springer looks back at a long and colorful life.






Jackson lived like king but died awash in debt
King of Pop dies before comeback bid could burnish ailing finances, career

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Michael Jackson the singer was also Michael Jackson the billion-dollar business.
Yet after selling more than 61 million albums in the U.S. and having a decade-long attraction open at Disney theme parks, the "King of Pop" died Thursday at age 50 reportedly awash in about $400 million in debt, on the cusp of a final comeback after well over a decade of scandal.

The moonwalking pop star drove the growth of music videos, vaulting cable channel MTV into the popular mainstream after its launch in 1981. His 1982 hit "Thriller," still the second best-selling U.S. album of all time, spawned a John Landis-directed music video that MTV played every hour on the hour.

"The ratings were three or four times what they were normally every time the video came on," said Judy McGrath, the chairman and CEO of Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. "He was inextricably tied to the so-called MTV generation."

Five years later, "Bad" sold 22 million copies. In 1991, he signed a $65 million recording deal with Sony.

Jackson was so popular that The Walt Disney Co. hitched its wagon to his star in 1986, opening a 3-D movie at its parks called "Captain EO," executive produced by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The last attraction in Paris closed 12 years later.
One of Jackson's shrewdest deals at the height of his fame in 1985 was the $47.5 million acquisition of ATV Music, which owned the copyright to songs written by the Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The catalog provided Jackson a steady stream of income and the ability to afford a lavish lifestyle.
He bought the sprawling Neverland ranch in 1988 for $14.6 million, a fantasy-like 2,500-acre property nestled in the hills of Santa Barbara County's wine country.
But the bombshell hit in 1993 when he was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy.

Jackson fans gather in Harlem
(02:03) Rough Cut

Jun. 25 - Fans of Michael Jackson gather at the historic Apollo Theater in New York to celebrate his life and share their sorrow at his death.

Note: original sound only, no reporter narrationFans and admirers of Michael Jackson, who died Thursday, gathered at the historic Apollo Theater in New York City's Harlem district, singing his songs and expressing their sorrow at his loss.

Atlanta startup turns human waste into fuel

Atlanta startup turns human waste into fuel

RIALTO, California (Reuters) - Fifty miles east of Los Angeles, a small and inconspicuous facility is using something most of us would rather not think about -- household sewage -- to create a resource we can't live without -- fuel.

EnerTech Environmental, an Atlanta startup, on Thursday unveiled the United States' first commercial biosolids-to-energy facility in California's Inland Empire. "Biosolids" is the nice term for processed sewage sludge.

The sludge is 80 percent water when it arrives at EnerTech's plant, where it is turned into fuel simply by removing most of that liquid.

The product customers buy is 95 percent solid and interchangeable with coal, according to Chief Executive Kevin Bolin, whose grandfather invented the company's patented "SlurryCarb" technology. Read Article...
http://www.reuters.com/article/smallBusinessNews/idUSTRE55B3UU20090612